We all have books that send us careening down a different path in life. The Science of Stuck is mine.

The Lost Decade

After dealing with back to back depressions in my late twenties, I sought out help, and was given a diagnosis: Major Depressive Disorder (formerly known as Clinical Depression). For a year, I worked with a therapist who gave me some tools to manage myself and off I went. During my mid-thirties, my career stalled and my dating life one big dumpster fire, I couldn’t regulate my emotional swings to save my life. These swings increasingly put my life physically on the line, so I eventually found myself in a psychiatrist’s office, and I was given a new label at age 34: Borderline Personality Disorder (traits). That is not the easiest of diagnoses to accept, never mind work through, so I didn’t. 18 months later, the world shut down for two years of pandemic.

The first 6 months of the pandemic, I focused on survival. Like many people, I was terrified, and it was a time of reckoning: with nowhere to go, I either learned to live with myself or I didn’t. The choice was absolute. I ruthlessly eliminated every relationship in my life that increased my emotional instability; that helped. I took time to redecorate my home, turning it into a peaceful sanctuary; that helped. As there was no longer any possibility of participating in my usual performance-oriented hobbies (dancing, boxing, or Olympic lifting), I turned to reading, discovering new worlds and new ideas; that helped. My emotional reactivity gradually stabilized enough for me to discover that I not only tolerated myself, I enjoyed who I was when I wasn’t in the throws of overwhelming meltdowns or paranoid episodes.

Discovering My Stuckiness

Canada opened up to the world post-pandemic in 2022: I was 38. Anxious whether my mental health gains would hold once I integrated back into ‘real life’, I threw myself fully into my career. The results were mixed: my stress threshold was higher than it ever had been, but when I did reach a breaking point, the meltdowns were just as mortifying as they ever had been. Imagine a grown woman, crying hysterically for hours: I needed Gatorade after every episode to fix my debilitating dehydration headaches! Tired of accumulating professional scar tissue, I once again sought out help; this time, I did not get any. The mental health crisis brought on by the pandemic had strained the mental health providers to a breaking point: most psychologists didn’t have waiting lists, and those that did warned me their backlog was measured in years, not weeks. So I did what I’d been doing for years: I got on with it, on my own.

Unlike my previous attempts at white-knuckling it, this time I changed up my pattern: I enrolled in Kellogg-Schulich’s Executive MBA. It would cost me approximately the same as 24 months of therapy, allow me to travel the world, meet new people. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I was trying to free myself from the Groundhog Day that my life had become. It was a great impulse, and an example of me choosing to listen to the healthiest part of myself.

The Beginnings of Unsticking Myself

During the first day of Launch Week of the EMBA, when we were going around the room with our introductions, the voices in my head were vicious: ‘Who do you think you are? You don’t belong here. You should leave before you embarrass yourself. Listen to their stories; how dare you consider yourself to be the same caliber as them? If you plan your exit carefully, when all the attention is on someone on the other side of the room, you could slip out of the room without anyone noticing. No one would know you were foolish enough to have applied, no one would remember you.’ These voices threatened to drown out the words of my fellow classmates: to ground myself, I took notes of each person’s introduction. One by one, I jotted down whatever fun fact they had shared, their names, their industry, etc. Then it was my turn. I don’t remember what I shared, but it was soon over. At break, several people came up to me to tease me about my nerdy note-taking, or else to comment at my commitment to getting to know my peers; I just smiled – no sense telling them what actually had been going on!

The EMBA was everything I hoped it would be: every class weekend, we were immersed in new concepts, the conversations were electric, I was surrounded by the smartest people I’d ever met. It was wonderful… except that it wasn’t. I had spent the past three years in total isolation, living alone, cut off from coworkers, friends and family; suddenly, I was spending every waking minute for 3 days straight, twice a month, with 50 A-type extroverts, most of whom did not have an indoor voice. I was terrified of betraying my brokenness to my peers. The meltdowns were a regular occurrence: every class weekend, I would spend at least 1 night in my hotel room crying myself to sleep. I was friendly, but I resisted making friends.

Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

My Come-to-Jesus Moment

In July of 2023, I made my way up to Quebec to see my family: the first time I had seen them all year! They were very curious to hear about my experience in this expensive, elitist program. I gave canned answers, with a smile. Everything was great, it was totally worth it! Great ROI, for sure! At the end of the trip, my goddaughter – a trained psychologist – gave me a belated birthday present: The Science of Stuck. We are known for our subtle approach, in my family.

In August of 2023, we had our fist big trip of the EMBA, the Global Network Week (GNW). Current students from each of the Kellogg Partner School campuses (Evanston, Miami, Toronto, Valendar, Hong Kong, Beijing) congregate at the OG Northwestern campus in Evanston, Illinois. There are so many students in the network, this activity is spread out over 3 weeks, in batches of 250-350 students each! Armed with the list of attendees in my week, I LinkedIn stalked each of them. If I had felt like an imposter during Launch Week in January, that was nothing compared to the fraud I felt going into GNW. Everyone was so prestigious, with careers I hadn’t known real people could even aspire to. So I hired a personal stylist, dropped $2k on a new wardrobe and hoped for the best.

GNW was a great experience: I socialized, appeared normal, made some connections. It also was exhausting. Unlike my usual pattern during class weekends of crying myself to sleep 1 night out of 3, this time, I kept it together for all 5 days of networking… and then cried for 3.5 days straight. It took many jugs of Gatorade to rid myself of my pent up feelings of inadequacy, shame and fear. I considered quitting the program. With anguish levels reminiscent of the pandemic, I turned to the only coping mechanism I knew: I locked myself at home, and spent every free moment reading.

I read The Science of Stuck.

---

The Science of Stuck: Synopsis

Britt Frank is a recovering addict, who spent her twenties in the throes of harmful behavioural patterns. Her journey of recovery – of getting unstuck – is what prompted her to become a licensed psychotherapist. She is now a clinician, educator and trauma specialist. The book opens with a bang.

Mental health is not a mental process – mental health is a physical process. For many of us, even our scariest symptoms are not mental illnesses – they’re body responses. The trajectory of my entire life changed when I learned about body responses. Symptoms of borderline personality disorder, bipolar 2, clinical depression, and eating disorders all but vanished. Long-standing patterns of stuck were gone – and remain ancient history.

Britt Frank covers three concepts, before shifting into the practical « how-to » of unsticking oneself:

• Our brains are perfectly designed for survival (but not necessarily happiness or comfort); when we understand our bodies’ signals, we have clues to where our minds are stuck;
• Trauma: what is it, and why we all have some;
• Unprocessed trauma is what keeps us stuck.

Anxiety feels like an attack because it seems to come out of nowhere. When you think that you can be ambushed at any moment, it is challenging to feel safe in your body. But nothing comes from nowhere. Even if you don’t know the origin of a symptom, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a good reason for its being there. (…)

Anxiety is not intended to hurt you but to help you if you’re unsafe or veering away from authenticity. Limping after you twist your ankle isn’t a disease – the pain is a signal than an injury needs attention. Vomiting after taking tequila shots isn’t a disease, but a signal that you’ve had too much to drink. Instead of viewing anxiety as a disease, look at it as a signal; this is a more effective framework for getting unstuck.

 ‘Trauma’ is a word that was not common when I was growing up, and when it was used, was limited to the big things: someone being held up at gun point, a car accident, a house burning down, etc. I’ve always been careful to not contribute to its overusage, and I’ve always resisted the notion that I have experienced anything traumatic: I’ve had lower middle class upbringing, in a first world country. There have been some darker days but, as Ross from Friends would say, I’m FINE!

I’m fine… except… the 15 symptoms of unresolved trauma are:

• Indecisiveness
• Over-apologizing
• Difficulty saying no
• ADD/ADHD/OCD
• People-pleasing
• Perfectionism
• Mind racing
• Difficulty relaxing
• Hating surprises
• Procrastinating
• Feeling lazy when you want to be productive
• Inability to stop working when you want to rest
• Exaggerated started response (always jumpy)
• Difficulty enjoying sex
• Difficulty enjoying food without guilt.

I check all the boxes. 12 out of 15 are so ingrained in me, most people consider them my personality. So what is trauma? Dr. Peter Levine, the developer of Somatic Experience, a body oriented approach to trauma healing, describes it as anything that is ‘too much, too fast, or too soon’. Britt Frank takes it a step further:

Trauma is your brain’s inability to process and metabolize information. In simpler terms, trauma is ‘brain indigestion’. A trauma response is what happens as a result of brain indigestion. Though the word trauma sounds scary, it is simply a clinical way of saying your brain is overwhelmed.

Well, shit. If that is the definition of trauma, my life has been one big tummy ache!

The past stays present until it is processed. The goal is to metabolize our experiences – not to get over them. Metabolizing your experiences means you can feel your feelings without overwhelm – that is, you can remember painful memories without cringing and you mostly feel at home in your body.

---

Getting Unstuck

What if my need to cry myself to sleep at least once every class weekend was not an inability to regulate my emotions like a grownup, but my body’s invitation to consider why I didn’t feel safe despite being surrounded by people I loved and admired? What if instead of berating myself, I chose curiosity?

Curiosity led me to a few realizations:

• I associate loud voices with anger – rather ironic since my baseline volume is comparable to that of a megaphone. Every time class discussions became impassioned, I believed I was surrounded by anger;
• My personal and professional experience has taught me that a woman is not safe in a room of angry men;
• Having spent much of my life in work hard, party hard environments, I conflate high octane party scenes with loosened inhibitions, which in the best case leads to Big Dick Energy showdowns between the men and in the worst case leads behaviours that I’m rarely proud of and that can be then used against me by the very people who encouraged said partying.

Boiling it down, I did not trust I would keep myself safe, and rather than explore my lack of agency, I instead told myself a story that my EMBA people would hurt me. The tension of keeping my guard up while wanting to bond with these lovely, interesting, kind people was burning me out. Once I had realized that much of my discomfort came from my body’s belief I was unsafe, I adjusted my behaviour:

• I sat next to the quieter introverts in class;
• I made sure to go up to my hotel room for 45 mins after class to ground myself before joining people for dinner;
• I opted out of the heavy partying, completely;
• I looked for the non-partiers, and spent much more time getting to know them.

I did not cry once for the rest of the EMBA!

Doing the Work

The Science of Stuck helped me reframe my life story away from bewildering victimhood (life happening to me) to a neutral narrative of emotional injuries that, improperly or incompletely healed, were relevant to current day events. This newfound language and understanding decreased much of the suffocating shame I’ve long carried with me, and presented me with a clear choice: digest my brain indigestion or remain emotionally stunted, incapable of the rich tapestry of stable relationships that make life worth living.

I called up my goddaughter, and asked her for recommendations on the type of therapy that would best work through my stuckiness. I got myself on a waiting list of a therapist who specializes in trauma and toxic gender norms. While waiting, I did 4 months of acupuncture to calm my nervous system.

In November 2023, I began therapy. It’s not been easy: there is a lot of grief that comes with accepting the cost of unresolved trauma. But having a safe space to showcase these unhealed wounds has been a game changer. Slowly but surely, I’ve become more comfortable with connection because I am learning the tools to ensure my own safety. I now explore vulnerability and am learning to share my stories. I’ve been given the compliment that I make people feel safe. My life is full of laughter and love and friendship.

What would your life be if you got unstuck?

---

Additional Reading

At the end of each chapter, Britt Frank includes ten takeaways. I’ve included them below.

Chapter 1: Anxiety is a Superpower

1.) Anxiety is like the check-engine light on your car. If you disable it, you’re screwed.
2.) You brain is wired to keep you alive – not to keep you happy.
3.) A panic attack is not an attack. It is your brain trying to talk to you.
4.) The inability to feel pain is not strength – it’s emotional leprosy.
5.) Anxiety is not a disease.
6.) Anxiety always comes from somewhere – even if you don’t know where that somewhere is.
7.) The chemical imbalance theory of depression has never been proven (as at publication in 2022).
8.) Anxiety does not need to be fixed – it needs to be understood.
9.) A survival response will often look like an anxiety disorder, but it isn’t.
10.) You are not crazy.

Chapter 2: The Hidden Benefits of Staying Stuck

1.) Most behaviours have perks – even “bad” behaviours.
2.) There are many health benefits to staying stuck.
3.) Understanding the function of your behaviour is the key to changing it.
4.) Staying stuck protects you from failure and rejection.
5.) Your brain is wired for survival, not happiness.
6.) Your nervous system is engineered to conserve energy.
7.) Shame keeps you stuck.
8.) Getting curious about your behaviours (without shaming yourself) gets you out of stuck.
9.) Many of our symptoms are body responses and not mental illnesses.
10.) It’s usually harder to avoid your feelings than it is to feel your feelings.

Chapter 3: The Myth of Motivation

1.) Trauma is brain indigestion. We all experience it to one degree or another.
2.) A trauma response is the result of your brain miscalculating your body’s energy needs.
3.) When your nervous system gets stuck on up, you feel panicked/anxious/distracted.
4.) When your nervous system gets stuck on down, you feel tired/depressed/frozen.
5.) Your unconscious brain gets to decide whether you are safe.
6.) “Lazy” is a moral judgment – not a biological reality.
7.) Your brain is always motivated. It’s motivated either to make choices or to survive threats.
8.) You don’t need a balanced system – you need a dynamic (mobile) system.
9.) Trauma explains behaviour – it does not excuse behaviour.
10.) Trauma is not an illness. It is an injury – and it can heal.

Chapter 4: Shadow Intelligence

1.) Shadows refer to any aspects of yourself that you hide or repress.
2.) Shadow work is the process of being honest with yourself about yourself.
3.) You need your shadow to be whole. Wholeness requires light and darkness.
4.) When you hide your shadow, it gains power and comes out sideways.
5.) Your SQ (shadow intelligence) is a measure of your shadow awareness.
6.) Every shadow part comes bearing valuable gifts.
7.) We all have multiple parts of our personalities.
8.) When your inner leader is on board, you can manage even your most destructive and self-defeating behaviours.
9.) Talking to yourself in the third person (using your name or pronouns) is more effective than using ‘I’.
10.) Compassion is not the same thing as permission.

Chapter 5: How to Human

1.) You can’t change your partner, but you can change how you respond to them.
2.) When you known your conflict language, you’re more likely to stay in control during arguments.
3.) Conflict is inevitable; fighting is optional.
4.) Creating a conflict contract can help build a safe container for arguments.
5.) If you and your partner(s) are not willing to follow the conflict contract, disengage.
6.) A request is when you ask someone else to do something. The power to do it or not do it lies with them.
7.) A boundary is what you choose to do in response to someone else. The power to do it or not do it lies with you.
8.) Boundaries never depend on another person doing what you want them to do.
9.) Making amends is more effective than saying ‘I’m sorry’.
10.) There are four parts to making amends: Own the thing you did; Observe how it impacted your partner; Outline your plan not to do it again; Offer to listen.

Chapter 6: The Sticky World of Friendships and Dating

1.) Not having friends can have the same impact on your health as smoking cigarettes.
2.) You don’t need to have a best friend.
3.) Unconditional trust is not a realistic (or necessary) goal for adult relationships.
4.) Consider the roles you want your friends to play – then choose accordingly.
5.) Don’t try to box your friends into I’ll-fitting roles.
6.) Social media friends count as friends if you want them to count as friends.
7.) Most movie and TV couples – even our favorites – are toxic.
8.) It is not healthy to spend every waking moment with your partner.
9.) Sometimes love isn’t enough to sustain a relationship.
10.) It takes roughly a year before your brain comes down off of ‘couple cocaine’ brain chemistry.

Chapter 7: The Emotionally Unskilled Family

1.) All families are dysfunctional to a degree.
2.) Perspective is healthy, but comparison is not helpful. You have a right to your feelings.
3.) The ideal attachment style is secure attachment. Wednesday and Pugsley from The Addams Family demonstrate secure attachment.
4.) The ideal parenting approach is authoritative parenting. Elasticity from The Incredibles demonstrates authoritative parenting.
5.) Instead of thinking of your family as good or bad, think of emotionally skilled versus emotionally unskilled.
6.) You can’t make your family change, but you can change how you respond to them.
7.) Boundaries are a necessity for emotionally skillful families.
8.) Compassion without boundaries is codependence.
9.) Forgiveness is a beautiful spiritual ideal, but it is not required to heal emotional injuries.
10.) Unintentionally caused trauma is still trauma.

Chapter 8: Trust Your Instruments

1.) Lying to yourself is the fuel that keeps addictions and habits alive.
2.) There is not a one-size-fits-all cure for addiction.
3.) Addictions and habits are problematic, but they are not the problem.
4.) The goal of your addictions and habits is self-protection, not self-sabotage.
5.) The opposite of addiction is honesty.
6.) Abstinence is not the only way to manage addictions and habits.
7.) Underneath every addiction, compulsion, and habit is unaddressed pain.
8.) Making a good decision rarely produces an immediate good feeling.
9.) Withdrawal is the step between wanting and having.
10.) Do not attempt to withdraw from chemicals without medical supervision.

Chapter 9: Becoming an Emotional Adult

1.) Emotional regression is when you feel smaller and younger than your chronological age and physical size.
2.) Signs of emotional regression include indecisiveness, people-pleasing, emotional outbursts, and imposter syndrome.
3.) The holiday season is prime time for emotional regression.
4.) Asking yourself, How old do I feel right now?, can help stop regression.
5.) Emotional adults still get to play and be creative and childlike.
6.) The solution to emotional regression is grief.
7.) Grieving the past frees you from the compulsion to repeat it.
8.) Grief does not happen in stages.
9.) Most of the things we were taught about grief in Western culture are wrong.
10.) There are four tasks to grieving childhood – accept the reality that childhood is over, be willing to feel all your feelings, create new boundaries with friends/family, and take the reins of your life/make decisions based on your thoughts/feelings/dreams.

Chapter 10: Let’s Play

1.) Rule 1: Take Inventory
2.) Rule 2: Look for Easy Moves
3.) Rule 3: Make a List of Three Choices
4.) Rule 4: Know Which Pieces You Can and Cannot Move
5.) Rule 5: Do One Thing
6.) Rule 6: Listen to Feedback
7.) Rule 7: Celebrate

---

All excerpts and citations from:

Frank, Britt. The Science of Stuck: Breaking Through Inertia to Find Your Path Forward. TarcherPerigee, 2022.