Why You Might Feel Stuck (Even After Years of Work): A Nervous System Perspective

A story about how deeply our patterns can shape not just how we think, but how we move, express, and show up — often without us even realising it.

Meeting Natasha

I met Natasha over ten years ago, in the middle of my Hakomi mindfulness-based psychotherapy training. I had decided to attend an extra workshop on intuitive body knowing—learning how to tap into the wisdom of the body, how it speaks to you, and how you can use it to access deeper layers of yourself. I loved immersing myself in this kind of rich, deep inner work—it’s so liberating. Natasha was just trying it out, wondering if it was something for her.

We were sharing a room, and on the first evening, she started stretching—effortlessly dropping into deep splits, holding her leg high up toward the ceiling, moving with a grace I could only admire. This was something I had always wanted to do (and never have—and, given my age, likely never will… though I still hold onto the hope, playfully ;)).

I shared with her how beautiful I thought her movement was, and she mentioned she had trained as a ballet dancer at a renowned ballet school from an early age. I was impressed. As a child, I had longed to learn ballet, though now I believe my heart was yearning more for embodied self-expression.

She registered my admiration.

"It must feel amazing," I said, "to have that range of movement, and to let your body intuitively express itself with that."

Tears welled up in her eyes. She sat down, her body sagging. Through her tears, she said, “You know, I can do all these movements. I’ve been trained and drilled to perfection. I get the admiration. I love it in many ways—but I don’t know how to move intuitively. I can’t express my true self with my body.”

At first, I didn’t understand. I told her she could trust and follow the movements that come from within, that it’s a natural process. But she shook her head.

“I know that,” she said. “But whenever I try, I end up doing a ballet move. No matter how hard I try, my body goes into those trained patterns. I always end up in a pirouette or arabesque or some kind of ballet move. I can’t change it. I can’t be free with my movement. I can't freely express my soul with my body.”

I was dumbstruck. I had never considered this possibility before. For me, dance and movement had always been the epitome of soul expression. But of course, it made so much sense.

And in that moment, I saw it so clearly—what was happening in her body is what happens in our subconscious. The way we keep ending up in the same old patterns—of thinking, feeling, believing—often without even realizing we’re doing it.

I shared my thoughts with her and told her about my own conditioning. At the time, I was still coming to terms with having left the medical system, struggling to strip away what my educational systems and upbringing had conditioned me to be, do, and think (and to be honest, I still struggle with layers of this, even now.)

We sat in silence for a while. Then she said, “I would rather have thoughts to deal with because I know how to deal with them better than breaking out of the drilled movements. You’re lucky.”

I laughed.

"I’d rather have your situation. I feel like accessing my body’s intuitive wisdom comes more naturally to me, but I can’t break out of the way I’ve been conditioned to suppress my brain’s natural way of thinking and processing. My brain likes to process in bursts, in cycles and creative patterns, and I keep trying to make them consistent and linear. It’s like trying to fit myself into a spreadsheet or making myself palatable and easy to understand.

The problem is, I often only realise I’ve done this later on, when my body tells me ‘no.’”

And then, in the same moment, we both got it. Our issues were just a different expression of the same pattern. These deeply ingrained patterns are not just habits — they’re often nervous system imprints, shaped by conditioning, survival adaptations, and early relational fields.

The only reason we had these skills that helped us—hers in dealing with thoughts, mine in accessing my body's intuitive wisdom—was because we had had the freedom to develop them to a certain degree, or had learned to use them in one way or another.

We laughed again.

“Well,” I said, “Hakomi is helping me a lot in dealing with this—maybe this is perfect for you too.”

And it’s stayed with me — how something so deeply trained can begin to move on its own, without us even realising it. Not just in the body, but in the way we think, process, respond, express, and move through life.

What feels natural… often isn’t. What feels like “us”… is sometimes what we learned to become. Sometimes the very thing we’ve practised and refined over years becomes the shape we can’t move out of. It looks like ease from the outside — but inside, something feels held in place.

And at the same time, something else is there. Something quieter. Less practised. Less shaped. The part that doesn’t quite fit into what we’ve learned — but keeps trying to find its way through.

I believe many of us recognise this in different ways.

Places where something in us wants to move differently — but can’t quite access how. Where we keep returning to the same patterns, even when we know them. Not because we’re doing something wrong, but because something deeper is still holding them in place.

And maybe the starting point isn’t to change it.

But to begin to notice it. To stay with it a little longer. To feel where it lives — in the body, in the movement, in the way we respond.

And to see what else might be there, underneath it, longing to unfold.

At the core of it all, aren't we all longing to just be free—to resonate with our true, innermost self and soul?

Life is so much more than we’ve been conditioned to be and believe. Nature and the universe are our greatest teachers in this, always guiding us back to our inner rhythms and pace, to a deeper communication that does not need words, and to spirit that lives within and through us.

Let’s all take one step closer to the freedom that is our birthright—towards the knowing deep in our cells that lies beyond what we’ve been shaped to believe about ourselves, honouring that we’re all on this journey in different ways.

Follow the whisper…

Reclaiming intuitive movement — whether in thought, body, or spirit — is a sacred act of soul remembrance. You don’t have to choreograph it. Just follow the whisper one gentle step at a time.