Why our brain can reject change
Hello lovely people,
How are you today? I wanted to share a few thoughts with you about approaching the movement we need for shifting, changing and making significant steps in the journey we are on with ourselves.
Change doesn’t always feel good. In fact it can feel scary and impossible, we can feel intense aversion to change when we are unhappy and feeling stuck. Because change is not something our survival brain usually seeks out.
And our survival brain – with its states of overwhelm, panic, stress, sense of urgency, feeling of being trapped or doomed or blistering rage – is where many of us spend a lot of time.
That’s why most people don’t seek to change anything until they are long, long past due. When the breaking point has come and gone and they are twenty miles deep in the difficulty.
Because survival brain doesn’t like the unfamiliar. It doesn’t want to do something new when it has cobbled together something that keeps us basically afloat (even if we are lost at sea.)
So – no, we’re not thriving
No, we’re not happy
No, we feel stretched thin and ready to snap
But – our survival brain says – but we are alive!
And for our survival brain – that’s good enough!
Change brings up feelings, feelings that we often don’t like and which feel too uncomfortable.
And who learnt how to effectively deal with feelings? Who has these tools? These resources and support to fully work with our emotions so they feel manageable?
Most of us didn’t learn this. And most of us don’t have emotional support.
Something new – and sticking with something new – involves stepping into the unknown.
So we stay put. Stay stuck. Stay in our particular dynamic usually until something we care about breaks.
Our relationships. Our businesses. Our friendships. Someone dies. We get sick.
Until the chaos of life smacks us down and confronts us.
One of the other downsides of avoiding change is not just that we avoid things that feel uncomfortable – it actually stops us allowing in the full flood of experiences around things we love or are curious to explore or would love to experience.
It’s that your soul, that true authentic expression of who you are, knows that you’re living in avoidance.
That you’re trying to curtail yourself and your emotions. And so other feelings are generated about this avoidant mode of living.
Perhaps it’s:
Disappointment about what could have been
Despair about lost opportunities
Sadness about not bringing your gift to the world
Grief at time passing and you staying small, hidden and unseen
Fear of living the life that you weren’t meant to live
Shame about not feeling brave enough to move forward
So we get stuck in these cycles of torment. Too afraid to move towards what we want to do or be. Because to move towards it feels like moving towards a burning building.
Our brain is like – no way! Don’t do that!
But then we also quietly are generating all kinds of emotions about not doing that. Emotions like shame, despair, sadness, grief – which we may not be consciously aware of except in those moments when we are reminded of timing passing, or what we really want, or we realise we’ve got to the point in our lives when the time for such things has passed.
Confusing, right?
We end up in this giant mess of wanting life to be more. Wanting our lives to be bigger, more expansive, more interesting and exciting. But also calm, relaxed, less stressful, less unpleasant and relentless.
We want to feel safe and grounded and have somewhere to stand.
We want so much more – but we find ourselves in this quagmire of emotion, not sure where to step and what to do.
So how do we work with this situation?
Working to really connect with those tough emotions in a way that is new and safe and doesn’t feel overwhelming, that is what our body is calling for.
Learning to build a deep foundation in our nervous system of safety so that our survival brain isn’t always activated into this too-much/urgent/stressed/panicked/overwhelmed state.
It’s definitely not to push through or do what I did for decades – white knuckle the experience. 
No, we want to learn how to be the opposite – our very best, kindest, most gentle friend – a loving partner to ourselves tending to our emotions and being softer, kinder and more loving towards them.
Learning to accept and allow the difficult feelings. Tend to ourselves through them. Look after ourselves.
Support and hold those darker emotions.
Give ourselves validation, empathy and support to truly see, feel and hear what we are carrying.
That’s my approach. No force, no control, no pushing.
It’s through this portal – of empathy and love, of tenderness and kindness that we get to connect with that vision of ourselves and bring an integration of those emotions we find so challenging.
As we approach the drawing to a close of one year, and the opening up of another – can you see where you are stuck? Can you see what you’re avoiding?
What feelings are ones you need to bring a kinder, softer, more gentle approach to?
Can you give yourself some empathy, some understanding, some support around the harder things you feel and experience?
Can you see what you are carrying and soften your judgement about that?
Where can you love those stuck parts of yourself? Hold them a little closer, share them with people you love and trust, give these emotions the empathy and witnessing they are seeking?
Sending you much love today and wishing you days of curiosity, kindness and awakening self love.
With love,
Diana
