Stuck Not Broken

Sitting still should be the easiest thing in the world, right? But for a lot of people, it's maybe the hardest.

This episode moves into the third mixed state: stillness and intimacy — safety plus shutdown, immobility without fear. What actually makes it safe to sit still, use the restroom, or fall asleep at night. Why meditation, yoga, and even bedtime can feel dangerous for someone who lives in flight, fight, or freeze. And w...

Wrestling with your kids. Trash-talking during a pickup game. Screaming through a game of tag. On paper, those look like danger cues, so why do they feel so good? Play is what happens when your safety state and your fight-or-flight mobility switch on at the same time. Here's what's actually happening in your nervous system when you play, why the game changes the moment it moves from the living room to online voice chat, and what it...

Freeze is not the same as shutdown, even though people use the words like they mean the same thing. Shutdown is a limp collapse. Freeze is tense: all the energy to run or fight, with a body that can't move. It's the gas and the brake at the same time, and it's underneath panic, phobias, and that flash of rage that comes out of nowhere. Here's what's actually happening in a freeze, how to come out of one in the moment, and why a lon...

Sometimes the body's answer to too much isn't panic, it's the opposite: going quiet, going numb, wanting to disappear. That's shutdown, the bottom of the Polyvagal ladder, and it's where a lot of what gets called depression actually lives. Here's what it feels like from the inside, why your body would ever reach for it, and the slow, gentle way back up. No pushing through, no forcing it.

👉 New here?

Find your stuck state, and your ...

Anxiety and anger can feel like opposites, but they are two sides of the same state. Fight or flight is your sympathetic nervous system mobilizing to protect you: flight shows up as anxiety and worry, fight as anger and irritability. This one is about what that state feels like, what it looks like in a person's face, breath, and voice, and why a system built for short bursts can leave you feeling stuck when it stays switched on. Co...

Safety is the state where life feels workable. Not perfect, just manageable. It's the top of the ladder and the place we're all reaching for, so this episode is about what it actually feels like in your body, what it looks like on someone's face and in their voice, and what it really takes to get there. You'll also meet Courtney, whose story we follow throughout the states from here.

👉 New here?

Find your stuck state, and your star...

You're getting things done. Answering texts, making dinner, showing up. But underneath it you feel wired and flat at the same time, like you're watching your own life through a foot of glass. That's functional freeze: your gas and your brake pressed at once, and "functional" just means you're still getting through the day while it runs. In this episode I break down what freeze actually is, how it's different from burnout, depressio...

Ever notice your thoughts get meaner when you feel bad, and softer when you feel good? That's not a coincidence, and it's not a flaw in you. "Story follows state" means the story in your head comes out of the state your body is in, not the other way around. Once you catch it happening in real time, a dark story starts to lose its grip.

👉 New here?

Find your stuck state, and your starting place: https://www.stucknotbroken.com/stuck

...

Ever notice your thoughts get meaner when you feel bad, and softer when you feel good? That's not a coincidence, and it's not a flaw in you. "Story follows state" means the story in your head comes out of the state your body is in, not the other way around.

👉 New here?

Find your stuck state, and your starting place: https://www.stucknotbroken.com/stuck

Or go straight to what's best for you:

👉 Start free in the community: https://ww...

You can't just decide to calm down, sorry to say. The Polyvagal Ladder is a simple metaphor for how your nervous system moves: safety at the top, fight-or-flight in the middle, shutdown at the bottom, one rung at a time. Once you can see which rung you're on, a lot of the reactions you've beaten yourself up over start to make sense, and stop feeling like proof that something's wrong with you.

the Polyvagal Current - https://www.stuc...

You don't decide to beat your heart, take your next breath, or digest your lunch. Something else runs all of that, every second, without checking in with you. That's your autonomic nervous system. This episode breaks down what Polyvagal Theory is in plain language and how it questions the old "sympathetic vs. parasympathetic" idea.

👉 New here?

Find your stuck state, and your starting place: https://www.stucknotbroken.com/stuck

Or g...

What if the stories you tell yourself about your worth, your past, and how you got here aren't the whole truth, and you're still the one holding the pen?

This is Episode 1 of the Stuck Not Broken audiobook: Book 1 - Trauma & the Polyvagal Paradigm. We start by questioning the stories you have about yourself and open the possibility of a new one.

👉 New here?

Find your stuck state, and your starting place: https://www.stucknotbrok...

"That's bulls***." That was my honest first reaction, back in 2018, to the work I now build my entire career around.

In this episode of the Stuck Not Broken audiobook, I invite you to challenge your paradigm:

• How I came to Polyvagal Theory, and nearly dismissed it
• What a paradigm is, and why you need a new one before the science can land
• The urge most of us feel to skip ahead to the fix, and why there isn't one to skip to

�...

After seven years and nearly 300 episodes, I'm trying something I don't think anyone else is doing: giving you all of my Polyvagal Theory knowledge, directly. And free.

Season 2 of the Stuck Not Broken podcast is different from the regular show. It's the full audiobook of my first book, Stuck Not Broken: Book 1 - Trauma & the Polyvagal Paradigm, read chapter by chapter, right here in the feed. No book to buy. No course. Just the...

What does it mean to be a "gentle rebel" — and how does creativity fit in? In this episode, I talk with Andy Mort of The Haven community about rebellion as openness rather than aggression, why highly sensitive people often need space and safety to access their creative voice, and how creativity is less about the finished product and more about the ongoing process of becoming yourself. We get into the difference between self-s...

If you've ever sat down to meditate and felt like you were failing at it, this episode is for you. In this special episode, I read a section from my new book, Stuck Not Broken Book Three, on why most people are meditating wrong — and what to do instead. We'll get into:

• What meditation actually is through a nervous system lens
• Why "clearing your mind" misses the point entirely
• How rejecting the present moment sabotages your p...

In this episode, Justin Sunseri sits down with Erick Cloward, host of the Stoic Coffee Break podcast, for a deep dive into the Stoic practice of Amor Fati, or "loving your fate." Learn how to connect ancient Stoic wisdom with modern nervous system science. Erick and Justin discuss how to use principles from Stoicism and Polyvagal Theory to practice self-regulation, manage anxiety, and build emotional strength.

Discover how to stop f...

The Polyvagal Theory has transformed how we understand the nervous system—but somewhere along the way, it became a wellness industry bandwagon. In this episode, I'm breaking down how a legitimate scientific framework got diluted into oversimplified soundbites, and why that matters for your actual healing.

📱 Ready to practice self-regulation? Try the Stuck Not Broken app for free - https://www.stucknotbroken.com/app?src=podcas...

When your partner is in shutdown, you're not just watching it happen—you're in it too. This episode is for the partners who feel like they're losing their person, who don't understand what's happening, and who wonder if they're making it worse. In this episode, I break down:

• What shutdown actually looks like (and why it's not a choice)
• What you CAN'T control (and why that matters)
• 4 concrete ways to influence the situation w...