Stop trying to force yourself to revisit the most painful moments of

your life before you have the skills and the capacity to handle 'em.

At least that's that's what I think.

You can do what you want, but that's my recommendation.

I think true transformation happens when we prioritize stability over

the agonizing search for why.

In this episode, we're gonna explore how building a balanced

internal foundation is the essential missing prerequisite- prerequisite

for lasting emotional freedom.

I'm Justin Sunseri.

Hi, and I've been a therapist for about 17 years now.

Welcome to Stuck Not Broken.

People come to me for therapy because they need something different.

Um, same thing with coaching clients and, uh, students inside

of the Unstucking Academy.

They are, of course, rightfully burnt out by years and years of talk therapy

that focuses on digging up past memories and attempting to process them through,

replaying them in their mind, sitting with all the agonizing pain of it all,

or repeatedly telling the story over and over again, whether their eyes are

moving back and forth or not, or the therapist is holding a wand or not.

Um, I can see why they're burning out.

This is too much, but it's not uncommon in therapy in 2026.

For many people simply going to therapy and talking with a caring

other is enough, and just having that is enough to help them move out of

whatever stuckness that they're in.

They don't need to go into the details of the past.

They just need someone to listen, maybe hold them accountable and to come up

with and do some homework together.

You know, fairly simple and the risk of dysregulation is very low.

Some people do indeed need to or want to confront their past

details and they're ready to.

They share the details with a caring therapist, they cry out maybe and

they kind of move on with life.

Again, the risk of dysregulation is fairly low.

This person can handle it.

For others though, confronting the past is, is not what they need.

Focusing on the pains of the past does not bring a cathartic cry.

It might bring panic rage or, or numb them to the experience of the present moment.

So yeah, it might look like they're telling their trauma

story and confronting their pains, but really they've checked out.

They're not quite in the room anymore.

Like they are, but emotionally, they're not.

These are very different therapy clients.

The people who need to talk it out and are ready to, and those who are

probably worse off if they start talking about the past before they're ready to.

" Well, Justin, they're just weak and they need to deal with it."

So this is your response.

I humbly suggest that you are in no position to gauge

someone else's self-development.

But thank you so much anyways.

Also though, um.

Would you expect someone who does not go to the gym daily to lift 500 pounds?

Of course not.

So telling that person to deal with it would subject them to

potentially very bad results, right?

That's pretty obvious.

Well, the same applies to emotional regulation.

Emotions are not just chemicals in the brain or free floating experiences

that somehow live within us.

They are directly connected to the state of our body.

Our body's state can change over time and allow more emotional ,capacity

just like muscles can grow over time and allow one to lift heavier things.

So it would make no sense to ask a non bodybuilder to lift 500 pounds, just like

it would make no sense to ask someone who avoids their emotions to now pay

attention to the most difficult ones.

That would be flooding.

And obviously sounds like a bad idea, right?

Their body does not have the capacity for it.

Well, for now.

For now at least.

So when they go into a therapy session and tell the most horrific instances of

their life, they are being flooded, even if they are moving their eyes back and

forth, even if they are telling their story over and over again to desensitize

themselves to it, even if they're sitting with their typical compulsion and

withholding on the impulse to perform it.

I have heard from so many clients that these techniques simply

made things worse for them.

For all clients?

Of course not.

I'll remind you, I am specifically talking about those who do not have

the capacity to confront the most difficult pieces of their life.

When those with little distress tolerance confront their pains,

they end up retraumatized.

They end up solidifying their deepest shames and guilts and panics and rages

and are overwhelmed even further.

So getting unstuck from all this is not gonna happen through a historical

investigation of the past, and definitely not from flooding the

system with the details of the past.

And not by rehashing what happened this past week with no purpose

week after week after week.

We need to do something different.

We need a physiological shift in the present, the present moment.

We need to build capacity and gradually confront difficult topics- difficult

topics- if and when that person is ready.

" No, seriously Justin.

They, they just need to get over it," you might be saying. Or maybe

you're saying about yourself, to yourself, " I need to just get over

it." If it was that easy, sure.

If it was that easy, you wouldn't be listening to this and

searching for ways to get unstuck.

It's not simply a choice, which I am, uh, sure you're aware of.

This comes down to how our nervous system fundamentally operates.

Survival always trumps logic and even willpower.

Your nervous system is not a rational debating club or something that

you can just choose to overcome.

It's a biological mechanism that's been honed over millions of years of evolution.

It is been around well before us humans, and it's operated within every

species well before our consciousness.

It's biological.

It operates largely outside of our awareness and is

outside of our direct control.

If it's in a dysregulated state, it's not because you've chosen it.

It's probably a normal, unexpected result of your life context.

Yeah.

Uh, maybe even for a very, very long time.

That is possible, or it's been a long time.

When you're dealing with a system that's been chronically dysregulated, it doesn't

care about your therapy goals or your intellectual desire to process something

or confront or sit with; it cares about one thing, which is keeping you alive.

To come out of this chronic survival state, the body needs more ventral, vagal,

parasympathetic activation- you don't have to worry about the words, but that's the

biology that supports your capacity to think critically, to be in stillness, to

play with others, and to connect socially.

It's kind of important.

For those who do not benefit from processing the past- they likely have a

low level of this safety state present.

Maybe they have, uh, way too much flight fight, or are collapsed and

shut down or exist in a panicky freeze.

Regardless, they are always in a defensive state or easily triggered

into one by specific contextual cues that evoke painful past moments

that are relived in the body.

So when they attempt to heal by confronting their painful past, their body

is not in a regulated state to contain and process what is going to come up.

Trying to excavate deep traumatic memories when your system is already

overwhelmed is like trying to repair a car's engine while while driving

at top speed through a storm.

It's not just inefficient, it's dangerous and kind of dumb.

So let's be crystal clear here.

Establishing a baseline of physical and environmental and interpersonal

safety is non-negotiable.

It is the first step we have to have.

It's not optional.

We have to have literal safety.

This isn't just nice to have.

It's fundamental.

We need safe people and safe environments.

Attempting to do any kind of self-development without these pieces

is probably not gonna go very well.

So at least safe enough.

We don't need perfection, but safe enough.

Okay, so fine, you're on board.

What do we do about all this?

Um, I recommend doing less asking, "What happened to me back then?" And

more asking, "How does my body feel right now?" More connection to the

present moment in very simple ways.

Actually, at the very end of this episode, I'll give you a, a

super simple mindfulness prompt if you're up for it, just to help

connect to the present moment.

Questions like, how does my body feel right now?

How am I breathing?

What do I hear around me?

What's my skin touching?

These present moment questions help us focus on the here and now.

Once we're in the here and now, then we can address

discomfort if, if one wants to.

As an example, I did a session just today or as of recording this,

just just yesterday, with someone who typically has lots and lots

of anxiety and hypervigilance.

It's our second session and they came in with a five, outta 10

on their like, anxiety scale.

I did a very simple present moment thing with them, um, just like I'll do with

you at the, at the end of this episode.

I asked about their breath and what they hear, and again, they,

again, I'm sorry, very simple.

They dropped from a five to a three just from very simple mindfulness

stuff that three felt like calm to them with some fidgetiness.

They were leaning forward with their hands clasped.

But since they were now in a regulated state, I asked them if

they were up for a little exercise to challenge their safety state.

And they said, yeah, sure.

They were up for whatever.

Um, if I asked this question when they were at a seven, outta 10 in

anxiety, it would probably be a no.

Right?

So we venture into potential discomfort from a regulated

state, like a three out of 10.

So I said, um, something that I knew would trigger a little anxiety.

It was someone's name that was relevant to them.

And I was right.

It did, it, um, brought them to a six outta 10 anxiety.

So we permitted the six outta 10 to be there without rejecting it.

We just paid attention to it and then shifted our focus to

breath and the external sounds.

And soon the client said they were back down to a three again.

We did this process, this really simple process with the same trigger

from me, uh, a couple more times.

And each time the trigger went down a little from six to five to

four, to eventually not at all.

They just weren't even triggered by the same thing.

So then I switched and gave the client another name that I knew would trigger

them with their permission, and it again brought them quickly to a six outta 10.

But by now, their body already knew how to recover.

I didn't ask the client to tell me about these people or to share past incidents.

In fact, when they started to tell me, I said, of course they can, but let's

also focus on the way that their body is breathing and the sounds around them.

At that point, they didn't need to narratively process.

They could leave the cognitive processing and focus on the somatic.

On the body.

That that six outta 10.

In fact, they were even able to identify where that six outta 10 showed up in

their body, which was in their calves, and they identified which calf and they

identified what their leg wanted to do in response to the slight triggers.

They wanted to get up and leave, which makes.

Did they want to get up and leave because I'm a jerk and I kept triggering them?

No, I, that's the narrative maybe of, of, uh, what they were going through,

um, or a, a potential narrative.

And I hope that's not the case.

But no, really their, their body is responding to the trigger, which

is more of like flight activation.

When you have anxiety, uh, that's more flight activation.

All of this happens in the present moment, noticing the intensity of the anxiety.

Um, noticing the tension in the calves and the impulse to get up.

Noticing the breath and the sounds around us.

It's all very present moment.

Prioritizing the present is not dismissing or rejecting or stuffing down the past.

This isn't avoidance.

Prioritizing the present is building capacity at a biological

level, just like putting the reps in at the gym builds muscle.

We can use this new foundation to actually process more difficult

things later on in, in therapy.

If, if you, if you know a client wants to.

And we won't need to move our eyes back and forth or use a wand or sit with it

or tell the story over or whatever else.

We simply exist in the present moment and whatever it brings.

This sounds different because it is different.

That's what people keep telling me, at least.

The old models of therapy.

And, and self-help too, focused on uncovering the subconscious or

training behavior or changing your thinking or sitting through reliving

the most painful moments of your life.

Um, I don't think any of this cuts it anymore.

At least for those who are in the most desperate need of change.

Some people are ready for that and can handle it, that's fine, but

that's not who I'm talking about.

The new model, I hope you will consider, is to strengthen nervous system

capacity through gradually connecting with discomfort when regulated.

If you can do this, then you can pay attention to your subconscious or

process the past or change behavior or think differently or whatever.

And all that will become way easier because you're regulated now,

and the more regulated you are, the easier those things become.

This is possible not, not through force.

That's not the way it works.

Not through flooding, but through patient consistent micro regulation practices,

connecting you to the present and in understanding that the way you are

makes sense in the context of your life.

This is how we get unstuck this process.

Not by digging up the past, but by building a present

capable of holding anything.

And the past, if you want to, that's fine, you can process that.

If you're interested in building your own nervous system capacity,

it might not be too late to join me in the next live practice.

It's called Nervous System Capacity Builder.

It's live and you can show up however and wherever suits you.

No pressure to be a certain way or have your camera on or anything.

I'll lead you through a sequence of skills designed to strengthen your capacity.

It's like putting in the emotional reps, but without the overwhelm.

You can learn more about it in the link in the description.

Thank you so much for joining me on Stuck Not Broken, and thanks for

hanging out for another moment more, and because I wanna wrap this up with

you if you'll have it, um, by pausing here and just noticing our breath.

Just real quick.

Don't control it.

How is your body naturally breathing already?

If it changes on its own because you've paid attention, that's

fine, but don't control it.

Just notice it.

And as you do that, as you notice, maybe the next breath that comes in,

is it into your chest or your belly?

Is it more full or more shallow?

On the next one

and on the next one.

Is it more tense or relaxed?

And on the next natural breath, notice what you hear around you besides my voice.

Maybe in your space or outside of your space.

What else do you hear?

And I'll just sit here for a few more breaths with you so that you can

just focus on your natural breathing.

All right.

Great job.

You can do this more than once today, right?

Bye

This, and other content I create is not therapy, not intended to be therapy

or be a replacement for therapy.

Nothing in this creates or indicates a therapeutic relationship.

Please consult with your therapist or seek for one in your area if you're

experiencing mental health symptoms.

Nothing should be construed to be specific life advice.

It is for educational and entertainment purposes only.