Feeling Stuck? Try This Soothing Somatic Practice to Break Free
How the Nervous System Holds Our Stuck Patterns
We all know the feeling of being stuck. It’s frustrating, heavy, and sometimes quietly despairing. 😔 You want to move forward, but no matter how much you think about it, journal about it, or try to will yourself into change, you end up circling the same old patterns.
From a somatic healing perspective, this makes perfect sense.
Why We Get Stuck in Old Patterns
Our nervous system holds the imprint of our lived experiences. Every time something overwhelming happened in the past, our bodies found a way to protect us, often by bracing, numbing, or pushing feelings down. Over time, those protective strategies can become unconscious patterns.
You might think, “I just procrastinate,” or “I always choose the wrong relationships,” or “I shut down when I get close to people.” But beneath those patterns are nervous system states shaped long ago. Often, there are unacknowledged feelings that never had space to be felt. The body carries them forward, and the nervous system organizes around them. That’s why you can understand your patterns on a cognitive level and still feel powerless to change them.
Why Pushing Harder Doesn’t Work
When you feel stuck, the natural impulse is to push: to set firmer goals, to try harder, to shame yourself into action. But pushing usually just activates more resistance. The nervous system doesn’t release old patterns through force, it shifts when it feels safe.
Safety is what allows the body to soften its grip on the old feelings it’s been holding. When we give those feelings compassionate attention, the nervous system finally has the chance to update. And as it does, new patterns become possible.
When you feel stuck, you don’t need to push harder. You need to listen inward.
Somatic Practice for Getting Unstuck
This is where this somatic practice for getting unstuck can make all the difference. Instead of trying to “think” your way out of old loops or force yourself to change, this somatic practice helps you drop into your body and listen for what’s underneath.
One of the most supportive tools I’ve found for creating change in the nervous system is Havening Techniques®. Havening uses gentle, rhythmic touch along the arms, face, or hands to calm the nervous system and shift the brain into a more regulated state.
When we feel stuck, it often means the body is caught in a loop of survival responses, unable to find a way out. Havening offers the nervous system a new signal: you are safe now, you can rest here. This soothing touch reduces the stress response and creates a foundation where deeper emotional material can surface without overwhelming us.
By creating safety through Havening and gentle, embodied attention, you create conditions for those old, unacknowledged feelings to surface. And once they’re acknowledged, the nervous system can begin to reorganize. It can create new pathways that are no longer rooted in survival, but in connection, freedom, and choice.
How Change Really Happens
Lasting change doesn’t come from fighting yourself. It comes from helping your nervous system feel safe enough to release the old and practice something new.
When you build safety, you can finally feel the emotions you’ve been carrying. When you feel those emotions, they begin to move. And as they move, the patterns that held you stuck loosen. Suddenly, the things that felt impossible (like speaking your truth, setting boundaries, making different choices) start to feel more available.
This is why somatic healing is so powerful: it works at the level where patterns are actually stored.
A Gentle Invitation
If you are feeling stuck, it does not mean you are broken or failing. It means your body is carrying an old protective pattern that has not yet been seen, and with gentleness, with safety, and with the acknowledgment of your true feelings, it can shift.
This somatic practice offers us a way to listen inward, to meet what we’ve been carrying, and to help the nervous system create new patterns that allow us to move forward. And when we do, what opens is not just freedom from stuckness, but a deeper return to ourselves.
Try the Somatic Practice to Get Unstuck now!
Episode timing:
00:00 - How the Nervous System Holds Our Stuck Patterns
06:12 - Somatic Practice To Get Unstuck: Havening to soothe the nervous system
12:43 - Somatic Practice To Get Unstuck: Feel the stuckness in your body
17:39 - Somatic Practice To Get Unstuck: Iffirmations and sentence leads to go deeper
29:54 - Conclusion
Learn more about Havening Techniques and the science behind them
Learn all about Iffirmations here
Related: Enjoy more somatic practices to allow (and heal) your emotions here
Havening Techniques® is a registered trademark of Ronald Ruden, 15 East 91st Street, New York. www.havening.org
If this kind of gentle, body-based healing speaks to you, I’d love to invite you into Somatic Healing Hub - my membership community where we practice this work together.
With live classes, workshops, and coaching you’ll:
Create a steady rhythm of nervous system regulation, so you can feel calmer, clearer, and more grounded in daily life
Gently process the emotions held in your body, instead of getting stuck in reactivity, overwhelm, or shutdown
Break free from chronic stress patterns by addressing what’s underneath - not just managing the surface
Reclaim your attention from spiraling thoughts or anxiety, and reconnect with what your body is truly asking for
Feel supported and not alone, inside a community that honors your sensitivity and your pace
BONUS: You’ll also get AD-FREE ACCESS to my entire podcast library! (Somatic Healing Meditations)
Iffirmations (and sentence leads) to get unstuck:
What if it’s okay that I’m feeling stuck like this right now?
What if lots of people get really stuck sometimes?
What if there’s nothing wrong with me for being stuck?
What would it be like to stop fighting this stuckness and soften towards it instead?
What if I can embrace this stuckness, even for just one breath?
What would it feel like to welcome all parts of myself, even the parts that feel stuck?
What would it be like to listen to this stuck feeling and honor the message within it?
What if being stuck right now actually makes sense in a way?
What if being stuck makes sense because…
Because what I’m really feeling deep down is…
And what feels most stuck to me is…
What I really want or need when I feel this way is…
What I’m realizing now is…
How it feels to realize that is…
Noticing anything else that wants to be noticed until that feels complete.
How did that Somatic Practice to Get Unstuck feel to you?
What shifted within you? And what do you understand now that you didn’t understand before?
Please let me know in the comments!
➡️ If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would subscribe, rate, and review this podcast!
And please join me every Friday on this beautiful journey out of your head, and into your more embodied and authentic self. 🩷🩷🩷
Thanks so much for joining me today!
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Enjoy more like this: Havening Exercises, Iffirmations, Regulation Exercises, Allow Your Emotions
About me
Hey, I’m Karena!
I’m a somatic emotional healing coach here to help you quickly identify and heal the subconscious blocks, old emotional wounds and self-sabotaging core beliefs that are holding you back!
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