Three years into my marriage, I felt stuck.

What made me feel even more stuck, however, was that I knew what to do to unstuck myself.

But I felt as if I couldn’t do it…

Logically, I knew I had a few different options to remove this stuck feeling:

1. Communicate my feelings (um...)

2. Ask for help (seek therapy).

3. Leave the relationship (gulp).

Sounds black and white, right?

Well, as simple as these options each sound, you and I both know that simple isn’t the same as easy.

Why?

The “E” word.

Emotions.

Let’s look at how I felt at the time about each of these options…

Option #1: Communicate my Feelings

At that point in my life, I’d been emotionally constipated for 29 years and never taught how to express my emotions (because I was conditioned to believe men don’t do that).

I literally had no idea where to start or what to even say.

Say I was sad? Hell no.

Admit I was hurting? Absolutely not.

Share that I was unhappy? Um, I’m Paul-always-fucking-positive Salter.

I felt alone, misunderstood, and unable to express how I felt.

Suddenly, this option wasn’t so simple (or easy).

Option #2: Ask for Help (Therapy)

This is hard to do when you operate with a belief and insurmountable amount of pride that you can solve all of your problems on your own…

Plus, my parents had been married for more than 30 years at this point, and to my knowledge at the time, they never needed therapy.

Oh, and my grandparents on both sides had each been married for more than 50 years…without therapy (to my knowledge).

So, yeah, this so-called solution wasn’t too high on my list either.

Option #3: Leave the Relationship

If you’ve ever been divorced, you know the shame and stigma that come with this. I didn’t want that. Plus, I didn’t want to be the source of an indescribable amount of pain and hurt for my wife, family, and friends.

After more than six years together, four of which were spent living under the same roof, my identity was entrenched in being a husband and a part of her family. I identified as a married man and knew no other way of living.

The mere thought of undoing this was nearly impossible to comprehend - it was all I knew.

Perhaps the worst part about being stuck is knowing you are and feeling like there’s nothing you can do about it - even though you know what you can and should do.

As I shared originally, each solution seemed pretty cut and dry at first glance.

But upon further review of the emotions present around each, it became easy to see how difficult unstucking myself would be as I remained in a state of indecision and inaction feeling hopeless and helpless…

And underneath the cacophony of emotions I felt, I soon learned that there was one predominant emotion that exerted more control than all others combined…

This week’s newsletter is part one of a multi-part series on how to unstuck yourself.

Today, I’ll use a blend of personal experience and the latest research to help you better understand the core reason you’re stuck (it’s not what you think it is).

Keep reading.

It’s time to go unstuck yourself!

The “E” Word

We’re emotional beings.

Yes, even if you’re a man reading this…

I hate to be the bearer of bad news - it took me 29 years to learn this - but you, too, are an emotional being, not a robot.

The word emotion means “energy in motion.”

When you feel stuck in your life it’s because a particular emotion has hijacked the steering wheel of your life. This emotion remains stuck because you've not yet taken the time to feel, express, and release it.

The result?

The volume of your emotional brain is turned up to the max. This increases your likelihood of making rash, short-sighted decisions. And it also deepens the degree to which you feel stuck.

When you’re stuck, you know exactly what you need to do to move forward and unstuck yourself. But, for a variety of reasons (read: emotions), you remain paralyzed in a state of inaction.

I’m going to assume you’re still reading this because you feel stuck.

You feel stuck in the level of income you are earning (been there).

You feel stuck with the amount of debt you have (been there, kinda still there).

You feel stuck in an unhappy or unhealthy relationship (yikes, been here a lot).

You feel stuck in an unhealthy pattern of eating, exercise, or self-care (I felt stuck with MyFitnessPal for six years).

You feel stuck in a pattern of self-sabotage as it relates to the pursuit of any and all of your goals in life.

At the core of this stuck feeling is a predominant emotion that has you feeling like you’re trapped in quicksand. You’re desperately trying to climb out, yet, begin to realize that the harder you try to change your current state, the more of an uphill battle it becomes.

So, you remain paralyzed in a state of inaction.

You may feel stuck because you feel…

• Guilty of changing (or hurting others)

• Overwhelmed by the amount of responsibility, expectation, or pressure on your plate

• Ashamed for not having what you want (life) figured out already

Feeling stuck sucks.

There’s no sugar-coating it.

When you feel stuck you begin to lose all sense of belief and trust in yourself, as well as hope in how your life may unfold. You begin to feel like you have zero control of your life.

You feel hopeless.

Helpless.

Alone.

Misunderstood.

Afraid.

This is a scary place to be.

Even scarier, though, is how remaining stuck in a state of feeling, well, stuck, can lead to you taking desperate - often unconsciously motivated - measures in an attempt to unstuck yourself.

Speaking from personal experience, trust me when I say this is not what you want to happen.

In fact, I’ve been so stuck, so desperate for change, so hopeless, lost, frustrated, angry, sad, guilty, and ashamed, that I acted out of integrity and against my core values in an effort to unstuck myself…

I’ve been unfaithful.

I’ve lied.

I’ve made a countless number of mistakes.

And, as I reflect on each instance, I can definitively tell you I’d never even think to do such a thing when my logical, rational mind is in the driver’s seat. But, as we both know, we’re prone to stupid, irrational decision-making when our emotions are steering the ship.

Here’s what you need to know: if you choose to remain stuck - stuck in a state of refusing to take ownership, reusing to change, or refusing to take action - the likelihood of this unconscious thinking manifesting into conscious action becomes exponentially greater.

Even worse - and, therefore, important for you to hear - is that the stucker (now a word for our purposes) you feel, the more likely you are to unintentionally begin to inflict pain on those you care about most.

The pain of trying to unstuck yourself may seem unbearable, but trust me when I say the pain of having to acknowledge and own an action made out of integrity and attempt to make amends to those you hurt is far more painful.

Read that again, please.

So, if we know it’s more painful to stay stuck than it is to try and unstuck ourselves, why do we unconsciously fight to remain stuck?

The “s” word tells us why…

The “S” Word

The reason you feel stuck - in any area of your life - is rooted in survival.

You feel stuck because you’re programmed on a subconscious level to prioritize survival over everything.

But someone like yourself, who’s taking time out of your busy day to invest in becoming the next best you, is clearly interested in trying to thrive, not just survive. The disconnect between consciously desiring to thrive and subconsciously needing to survive is why you feel stuck.

It’s this constant tug-of-war between stepping outside of your comfort zone to thrive and needing to remain in your comfort zone to survive that produces the experience of feeling stuck in a pattern of self-sabotage.

The reason that we human beings have outlasted countless other species and been around for so long is rooted in the fact that our subconscious’s primary goal is survival.

On a conscious level, you produce thoughts and actions geared toward learning, growing, and getting better. These collective thoughts and actions lead to you stepping outside your comfort zone.

The moment you step outside your comfort zone, which is, well, uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and, of course, unsafe, alarm bells begin to blare. Your subconscious immediately begins efforts to bring you back into your comfort zone as quickly as possible.

And so goes the familiar pattern of two steps forward, two steps back.

Can you relate?

What’s most bizarre about this situation is the unfortunate reality that our subconscious operates at a primal level.

What I mean is that situations you consciously know are safe and okay, such as losing 20 pounds, falling in love, or earning $1,000,000, are often viewed by the subconscious as unsafe and a threat to your survival.

The reason is that your subconscious, which is home to your emotions, memories, and beliefs, has a good reason (read: strong emotion, bad memory, or powerful belief) to believe that a new behavior that brings you outside your comfort zone is a threat to survival.

This threat to survival is rooted in your unconscious desire to belong…

The “B” Word

Your subconscious drive to survive is biologically wired into your DNA.

For thousands of years, our ancestors survived by belonging. So, you have a biological desire (and need) to belong, because your ancestors literally died if they were ever cast out of their tribe.

The tribe was collectively responsible for food, shelter, and safety. You wouldn’t survive long on your own back then because of, well, you know, saber-toothed tigers, and such.

This is something you experience today: a fear of not belonging and a fear of exile from your tribe, whether that be your family, friends, or work colleagues.

For example, if your parents and siblings (even your friends) are all at least 20 pounds overweight and you desire to lose 20 pounds, your subconscious recognizes that such success would make you an outcast and you may no longer belong; therefore, it’s not safe to do such a thing.

Think about it: if you routinely partake in happy hour, drinking, and eating shitty food with your friends, but suddenly start choosing healthier alternatives and partaking less and less, there’s a real threat here.

You’re essentially removing yourself from community events and may even come off as “better” than your friends because of your healthy decisions. This puts your friendship and sense of belonging at risk, which is scary (for both your conscious and subconscious to think about).

Circling back to my story - which you can read about in detail here - I felt like I would be ostracized from my family should I have chosen to ask my wife for a divorce because divorce just wasn’t an option - no matter how I felt.

Your Subconscious Strives to Keep You Safe (and Stuck)

Safety.

Survival.

This is the M.O. of your subconscious.

And, in all its infinite wisdom, it continues to use clever tactics to gamify your life so that you feel as if you’re having different experiences. Yet, when you observe your life closely, it becomes obvious that you’re more or less tackling the same problems with the same solutions over and over.

Take your yo-yo dieting pattern of self-sabotage, for instance.

New diet.

New workout.

New attitude.

Same result.

Sound familiar?

Your subconscious executes this task by facilitating life on autopilot, which attempts to keep as much familiarity and predictability as possible present because this is what cultivates a feeling of safety.

You could go as far as to argue that keeping you stuck is the primary goal of the subconscious and that it does so by initiating any number of sabotaging situations and behaviors to keep you in your comfort zone, which is where feelings of familiarity, predictability, and safety grow.

And it achieves this goal by producing predictable patterns of autopilot in each aspect of your life.

If you take an honest and objective look at the challenges you’ve faced the past couple of years, I have a strong feeling you’ll be able to quickly identify a pattern. Sure, the circumstances may change, but how you view, interpret, and handle them remains the same.

What better way to keep you safe than to create the same problems over and over to allow you to apply the same useless, short-term solutions?

• This is why as a yo-yo dieter you continue to have success losing weight only to find yourself regaining the weight you lost (and possibly more) a short time after.

• This is why you finally pay off your credit card only to feel that you’ve earned the right to take a once-in-a-lifetime trip, which inevitably leads to the recreation of the mountain of debt you just climbed.

And, that, my friend, is why you feel stuck.

Because you literally are.

Stuck in a snuggy of safety and familiarity, which is how our species has managed to survive and outlast other species all of these years!

Any time you try to wrestle out of your snuggy of safety, your subconscious deploys an array of clever tactics to ultimately influence a return to your snuggy of safety (and survival).

The reason you feel stuck - in any area of your life - is rooted in survival.

• Feeling safe (rather than risking living life to the fullest).

• Living predictably (rather than assuming the risk of not knowing what’s to come).

• Experiencing familiar (which is more efficient than having to ready resources to navigate the unknown - remember our body and minds love efficiencies, and, in this case, efficiency helps preserve precious energy and resources for, well, survival).

These tactics originate from a predominant emotion and operate from a place of below-the-surface awareness that you cannot readily tap into on demand, which makes them increasingly difficult to change.

The “F” Word

Fear.

We all experience it.

And we all possess the same core fear.

A fear of rejection.

Why?

Because rejection is intricately connected to safety.

When you or I feel rejected, our safety is threatened.

And our brain locks into fight-or-flight in an attempt to recapture a sense of safety as soon as possible. It does this by defaulting to patterns of predictability, routine, and comfort that are rooted in the foundation of who you are.

Ed Mylett calls this your “Emotional Home.”

In next Friday’s Unstuck Yourself Newsletter, we’ll discuss the role your Emotional Home plays, and why it exists. Then we’ll begin to work toward taking action to identify, deconstruct, and rebuild it so that it becomes a foundation that serves you rather than works against you.

Today, I invite you to explore the following with compassionate curiosity:

• What is one area of your life where you feel stuck? Focus on one right now. It could be your health, your relationship, your finances, your income, your career, etc.

• What emotion is in the driver’s seat facilitating these stuck feelings and self-sabotaging behaviors?

• Why - or how - is your subconscious working to keep you safe? List out an example of a recent sabotaging behavior and your hypothesis about what your subconscious is trying to keep you safe from.

• What do you fear most when thinking about making the chances necessary to stop self-sabotage?

Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter.

You may catch up on previous newsletters here.

All my best,

Paul

P.S. If you have a question about anything I discussed in this week’s Unstuck Newsletter, feel free to drop me a message on Twitter (@pauljsalter7) or Instagram (@paulsaltercoaching).

My email inbox is always open, too: [email protected]

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