When Doing All the Right Things Still Isn’t Working: The Real Reason You Feel Stuck

Originally published: 1 November 2023. Last updated: 6 June 2025.

You’re doing everything right. You’ve got a solid supplement routine, a nutrition plan, maybe even a few supportive habits like walking in the mornings or journalling at night. But despite all this, you still feel flat. Or anxious. Or stuck in patterns that don't make sense for the person you're trying to be.

Here’s why: you might be missing the emotional piece.

The truth is, most health plans—even personalised ones—focus heavily on what we’re doing consciously. But they often miss the unconscious emotional patterns that quietly sabotage progress or create stress responses in the body that eventually lead to physical and mental symptoms.

The Missing Link in Your Wellness Plan

You can have the most beautifully curated, practitioner-approved protocol in the world… but if your nervous system is running a hidden program that says “It’s not safe to change” or “I don’t deserve to feel better”, then following through will feel like pushing a boulder uphill.

These internal drivers don’t show up on test results or health charts. But they show up in the day-to-day moments when you:

• Forget to take your supplements (again).

• Keep reaching for the coffee, even though you know it fuels your anxiety.

• Stay up late scrolling when your body is begging for rest.

• Self-sabotage your routines and beat yourself up for it the next day.

You know exactly what to do for your health. You’ve seen practitioners. You’ve had the tests. But you just aren't seeing the results you want.

This isn’t a willpower issue.

Your subconscious mind—which drives 95% of your daily behaviour—is working hard behind the scenes to keep you safe. And sometimes that means sticking to the emotional patterns it’s always known. Even when they’re not helping anymore.

These aren't character flaws. They’re nervous system responses linked to unresolved emotional patterns.

But It’s Not Just About Behaviour

Here’s where we go deeper.

Stuck emotions don’t just affect your actions. They affect your health. Unresolved grief, anger, guilt, or fear can manifest physically—headaches, chronic pain, fatigue—or mentally, in the form of anxiety, depression, emotional overwhelm, and that gnawing feeling of “not being enough.”

You don’t need to go digging endlessly into the past. But you do need a way to gently clear what your nervous system is still holding onto.

This is where Emotion Release Technique (ERT) comes in.

But first, let me tell you about a client I’ll call Sam.

Sam came to me after years of trying to manage her stress and hormonal symptoms. She was well-researched and incredibly proactive. She had a beautifully curated supplement shelf, journaled regularly, and made her own bone broth. But the moment stress hit—her child got sick, a deadline at work blew out—everything would unravel. She’d skip meals, feel resentful of the mental load, get snappy with her partner, and collapse into guilt.

“I know what to do, but I just can’t seem to do it when it matters most,” she told me.

That’s not a willpower problem. That’s a nervous system and emotional root problem. And this is exactly the kind of blind spot most people—and practitioners—miss.

Why Emotional Healing Matters

You can still take your magnesium. You can still eat well. But when your nervous system isn’t running on stress and self-sabotage, those physical practices finally work the way they’re meant to.

That’s why emotional healing is often the missing piece that creates the biggest shift.

ERT is a gentle, non-verbal method of clearing emotional stress patterns from the nervous system. It’s not just mindset work—it’s subconscious work. And when the emotional charge behind a belief or pattern is released, the body can finally relax. You’re not fighting yourself anymore.

ERT addresses the emotional roots of these behaviours—not with talk therapy, and not with more things to “do”, but by gently and powerfully shifting the emotional stress signals in your body.

• The unconscious stress pattern that drives you to clean the whole house when you really need to rest

• The old story that says taking care of yourself is selfish

• The fear that if you slow down, everything will fall apart

• The belief that you’re not worthy of health unless you’ve suffered for it

These aren’t conscious thoughts you walk around declaring. They live in the background, quietly shaping how you treat yourself. And they often show up through emotions—guilt, resentment, anxiety, hopelessness—that you either push down or manage on the surface.

Through ERT, we:

• Identify the specific emotional blocks related to your goal.

• Use muscle testing and energy points to trace the subconscious resistance.

• Clear the emotion with EFT-style holds and sentences.

• Confirm the shift so your nervous system feels safe to try a new pattern.

This work clears what’s holding you back at the root. So instead of trying to force change, your body and mind naturally align with your desired outcome.

It’s Not Just About Self-Sabotage—It’s About Your Health

Sometimes ERT uncovers why you’re not sticking to a routine or making progress on a goal. But more often, it uncovers the very thing causing your health issues in the first place.

• Anxiety that’s been simmering since childhood

• Chronic fatigue tied to feeling unworthy of rest

• Period pain made worse by a pattern of self-abandonment

• Skin flares during emotional stress

• Mood swings that are about more than just hormones

And of course, there’s the invisible load of mum guilt, resentment, mental noise, and pressure to do it all perfectly. These are not just emotional burdens. They’re physiological stressors. Left unprocessed, they dysregulate your nervous system and impact every system in your body.

As we clear the stored patterns from your body, something beautiful starts to shift in your mind as well. You become kinder to yourself. You stop calling yourself lazy, dramatic, or too sensitive. You start recognising just how much you’ve been carrying, and finally start showing yourself some grace.

Self-love becomes a natural consequence of emotional healing. Not a thing to do, but a way of being. (You can read more about that in my blog post What is Self-Love, Really?)

What If You Could Heal Without More Homework?

So how did Sam go? After a few ERT sessions, she felt the shift. Her emotional load lightened. She started showing up for herself with more ease, not force. Things still got stressful sometimes (because life), but she no longer spiralled into guilt or shut down. Most importantly, she began to feel like herself again—calm, connected, and capable.

One of the reasons I’ve moved to offering only ERT for my 1:1 work is because emotional healing offers results without needing to pile more onto your already full plate.

Unlike naturopathic care, which requires long-term consistency and often lifestyle changes between sessions, ERT meets you where you’re at. You don’t need to do anything at home (unless you want to). The shifts happen in session. And they’re lasting.

I still deeply love and live by naturopathic principles—which is why I teach them inside Nourishment Gateway, my 12-month group program for women who are ready to change their whole life and wellbeing from the roots up. That kind of transformation does take time, and that’s why NG is designed to be held and supported every step of the way.

But for those who just want relief, clarity, or an emotional reset—whether for a single issue or something that’s been weighing you down—ERT is where we begin.