There is nothing worse than feeling stuck. We experience this at work, in our relationships, and in the way we feel about ourselves. We try to fix the discomfort by changing jobs, changing relationships, changing circumstances, and it doesn’t work. Ironically, despite making changes, we don’t feel changed.
Sometimes the problem isn’t the situation itself. It’s the patterns we bring to it. The way we think, feel, react, protect ourselves, and relate to other people can keep us stuck even when we genuinely want something different.
The good news is that these patterns can be understood and changed.
Being stuck is a normal part of life. In fact, feeling stuck can tell us something important. It can be an opportunity to look more closely at what isn’t working rather than simply trying to make the discomfort go away.
Getting unstuck is an inside job.
That doesn’t mean blaming yourself for your problems. It means becoming more curious about your own psychology and taking responsibility for what you can change. When we begin to understand the patterns that keep us going down the same familiar paths, we have a greater ability to make different choices.
And that can be uncomfortable. Change usually is.
Shame and fear are often some of our greatest barriers, but they also serve a purpose. They protect us from experiences that feel threatening, painful, or uncertain. The problem is that the strategies that once protected us can eventually get in the way of the life and relationships we want.
It’s one thing to be self-aware. It’s another to know what to do with what you discover.
Getting out of your own way means being willing to look honestly at yourself and take responsibility for the patterns that aren’t working. This can include denial, resistance, shame, projection, worry, defensiveness, or the tendency to react before understanding what is really happening.
It also means questioning some of the stories we tell ourselves.
Don’t believe everything you think. We can become so invested in explaining ourselves, proving that we’re right, or protecting our position that we lose the ability to explore, learn, and grow.
Many of our worries and reactions are familiar patterns that reappear in new forms throughout our lives. We may find ourselves having the same conflicts, feeling misunderstood in similar ways, or responding to people and situations as if they were the ones we’ve experienced before.
Therapy can help you recognize those patterns while they are happening, understand where they come from, and consider what you want to do differently.
We can’t always see our own patterns clearly. When we try to do everything on our own, we can get caught in the same internal feedback loops that have kept us stuck.
This is where the therapeutic relationship matters.
I believe therapy should be safe enough for you to be honest and direct enough to be useful. My approach is highly interactive, supportive, and relational. I won’t simply listen and tell you what you should do. I’ll ask questions, challenge assumptions, point out patterns, and help you look at yourself and your relationships from different perspectives.
What happens between us can also provide important information about what happens in your life outside of therapy. Together, we can pay attention to how you respond to being understood, challenged, disappointed, cared for, misunderstood, or uncertain. Those moments can reveal things that are difficult to see on your own.
My goal is to help you create a healthier space between impulsive reactions and responsive actions, so you have more freedom to decide how you want to respond.
The therapeutic relationship provides a safe and collaborative place to explore meaning while confronting the thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and relationship patterns that may be interfering with your quality of life.
I work with each client in a way that is specific to the individual. My role is to help you better understand yourself, your relationships, and the patterns that shape your choices. That understanding can create new possibilities for how you respond, relate, and live.
Change, grief, loss, disappointment, and even perceptions of failure are part of being human. We often allow these experiences to define how we see ourselves. Therapy can provide an opportunity to understand them differently and decide what they mean to you.
I don’t believe the goal of therapy is to be happy all the time. A more meaningful goal is to understand what matters to you and make choices that are consistent with it.
When you know what is personally meaningful, becoming more authentic becomes a natural process.
Your best self isn’t some future, perfected version of you. It’s you, as you really are, in the here and now.
Connect with Dr. Nakisher to learn how you can improve your emotional wellbeing, and come to better understand thoughts and emotions.
