Notes On…Feeling Stuck
There’s a particular kind of frustration in feeling stuck.
You might know exactly what you want, maybe even understand what’s in your way, and still find yourself repeating the same patterns. It isn’t for lack of trying. Something deeper seems to be pulling the strings.
From a psychodynamic lens, stuckness often isn’t about the present moment at all. It’s the past, still active beneath the surface. Our unconscious holds tightly to early relational experiences, internal messages, and protective strategies that once helped us survive. Over time, those same strategies can quietly become the walls we can’t see but keep bumping into. We may long for change, but if change threatens something we’ve learned to depend on (even unconsciously), the resistance that shows up isn’t weakness. It’s safety doing its job.
Think of the person who deeply wants connection but still pulls away when someone gets too close. Or the one with big dreams who keeps finding reasons not to begin. These aren’t just habits or flaws. They’re familiar patterns shaped by old fears. And until those fears are met and understood, they tend to repeat themselves.
Moving forward doesn’t always mean pushing harder. Sometimes it means slowing down enough to listen. What is this resistance trying to protect me from? Where have I felt this before? In therapy, the answers often show up not in what clients say, but in how they show up. The silences, the need for approval, the discomfort with emotion, these small moments hold big clues. They’re reenactments of past dynamics, playing out in real time. And when we bring awareness to them, new possibilities open.
Feeling stuck isn’t failure. It’s a signal. A chance to pause and pay closer attention. The moment we stop treating resistance as a problem to be fixed, and begin seeing it as a story to be understood, something shifts. And that shift is where real movement begins.