What do you think of when you see the word 'change?'
Maybe the cyclic dance of the seasons populates your senses, your imagination bursting with visions, smells, sounds and feels of Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall.
Maybe you think of how someone you expected to stay the same is anything but what they once used to be. Maybe it is you, yourself who has gone through a lot of changing. Don't even get me started on how the times have changed?! You might say, leaning into the sometimes disheartening ways humanity seems to have been altered.
"Nothing is how it used to be."
Most of us are uncomfortable with change. I know for certain I was. A little digging on the web would confirm my suspecion that our brain has a hate and hate relationship with change. It is biological in nature, the dislike it harbors towrds anything out of the norm, the ordinary, the established shoutcut. It treats change as an injury, an error among a perfectly predictable pattern, like breaking a bone, or facing a disaster. Can you blame it? That is how it evolved to help us survive and even thrive for millenia. We needed to question and avoid anything we we had not incorporated into a familiar routine of survival, we depended on automated reactions to maximize energy and minimize risk in order to avoid discomfort which pretty much meant, well, ultimately death.
Another thing the brain doesn't care for is a good paradox. What better example of one than to thank the brain for what it has done and continues to do to keep us safe and away from discomfort AND at the same time announce we don't need it's outdated framework to be our default any longer? Seriously, who's gonna tell it?
See we've changed, a lot. So has life and the definition of discomfort is radically different than what the brain knows it to be. Now that no lions are chasing us on the daily, or even once every other decade, survival has a different meaning. Now that growth doesn't entail eating enough for the colder months ahead, discomfort has a whole new definition, one that actually makes a necessity, not a state that ought to be avoided. Now that we have drive-thru pharmacies and banks, and we don't need to speak to another human let alone hunt or gather or farm in pursuit of our daily necessities, connection with others, healing from our traumas, pursuit of optimal health and wellness, realization of our dreams, overcoming our limitations and making an impact...have replaced needs to merely survive the wilderness and keep our genealogy going.
Wow look at us moving on and up! Too bad, the brain is on the slower side of this rather swift shift to what we have become as a species. It seems to still have the old setup and wiring. To simplify, automate, avoid discomfort, optimize survival, hoard on energy and when change is detected, sound the alarm and implement the emergency protocols.
Fight it, Flee from it, or Freeze and conserve your energy.
So are we doomed? Stuck with an old Macintosh between our shoulders when the life we are living requires a Mc OS Sequoia Version 15.0.1? Assuming you want the bad news first, we could very well be doomed. It's no surprise mental health issues are on the rise in all age and gender groups. Life satisfaction plummiting across the board. Most of us face the inevitable states of an anxious, insecure, unfulfilled existances where chnage is not only calling for us but demanding we let it in but we sit crouched and tense on the other side of the door, dreading and resisting. The good news, well, how about two of them? To start with, you do not take the blame, your brain made you do it. Isn't that the best news ever? Before you indulge in the bliss of dodged responsibility, here's the other good news, you have the power to change your brain and it's relationship to change itself.
While we await for medical and technological advances that will make a brain transplant possible, (try here to play a game of wonder called "who's brain would you choose") let's talk about how we can train our brains to welcome, (even attract), embrace and sustain the change we wish to see in our lives.
I have to simply hope you have heard about neuroplasticity. If not, please google the definition and learn to recite it by heart. It is the reason healing is possible, why personal transformations flood our timelines, why lives change for the better, it is the reason I am alive today.
"Neurons that fire together, wire together"
What constitutes rewiring our brains anyway? Here are things to bear in mind while contemplating change as I learned through my journey.
In the beginning, suck it up and repeat
It won't be fun, it will definately not be easy. You stand no chance of winning while faced with a brain faced with change. Especially change that brings discomfort with it. It will be panic up in there, it will show up to fight and it will not relent. It will give you 10001 reasons not to lean into discomfort and they will all be convincing. It will either present it as intimidating and not achievable, or it will activate your cynicism and tell you those positive affirmations are corny and cliche. Therapy is a trend, built for the masses but not you.
You will snooze and stay under the covers, you will avoid conflict, you will call and cancel your first therapy session, you will not decline that new credit card offer. Hunting for will power to start something new and challenging is like chasing your shaddow. You will not catch it and will probably trip yourself up, destined for the ground.
The only thing to do here is simply avoid thinking, bypass the brain, become an animal that does things without a convincing reason, simply because it's being led by instinct and in your case, pure zealotry and adamance to drag the brain where it does not want to go. This might resemble torture but far from it, think of it like you dragging your child to the ER to get stitches for a cut too deep. You risk looking like the bad guy when in reality, you simply know what the child does not, yet.
Forget arriving
Every time you obsess on outcome or end result, think "shortcut, automated, reptilian brain, quick fix" and try to shift into seeking joy in the practice that is the journey. That makes change less threatening, more rewarding to the brain.
A friend of mine posted about her fitness transformation on her IG page today. Three-side shot of her physique in 2022, beginning of 2024 and current. She captioned it "Maintenance Mode".
That is the heart of worthy change. There is no simplified "after" where we get to arrive. True sustained change is a game of phases. Pre-contemplation -- comtemplation -- action -- maintainance.
I too don't think I fully understood change until I started weightlifting a few months ago. A practice I believed was reserved for men and a few badass women who had it in them to be outliers. It was not for me. Yet I could no longer shake off the realization of my frailty, bad posture and lack of physical vitality. Unable to lift my toddlers without excruciating pain in my lower back, my knees adding a soundtrack to my flight upstairs which always ended with hyperventilation.
Success is not an 'after' picture to put adjacent to the undesired 'before'. Or you will risk feeling defeated as you stare at the mountain to be climbed. It's the progress made on the path to better. It's the inches you stand straighter, the extra pound you can lift and sustain for longer, the semester you are close to completing, the new found awareness you have about your temper.
Find the joy in the hike, the mini battles you show up for and maybe even win, the endorphines that make your day brighter. The joy in the middle, Make that your aim.
Make sure it's your idea
Nothing wrong with positive influencers toards making change. But the quality of the influencing matters a lot. It makes the deference between a mandated brain and a motivated one. Hint hint, the brain despises one of those.
I mentioned earlier the stages of change. Most of the mental work is done in the pre-contemplation stage. Things may be business as usual and you are seeing no aparent need for change. Whatever you do, don't let sociatal expectations, a loved one's nagging, you comparing yourself with an old friend or a stanger influencer force you into making a change. The brain will likely revolt and you will be back to the old routine.
Whether you are working on changing a bad habit or working on your emotional regulation, saving money or seeking marital counseling , get to the contemplation phase organically ,at your own pace and time. Make it YOUR idea to shift, nobody elses. Your brain will then be an asset as you move forward, not a hinderance.
You want it to take time!
Remind yourself every step of the way that change taking long is equivalent to roots growing deeper. That is the only way your new identity will be well nourished and grounded, your results sustained. Fall in love with the fact that the scale is not budging and you have been lifting for three weeks straight, that your brain is still monkeying around from throught to tought and you have been meditating for years , that you still lose your cool with the kids and you have been reading all the books on conscious parenting. Progress marinates beneath the surface before one day, boom, you notice a seedling. You are just a little straighter, in stillness for 5 seconds longer, catching yourself mid meltdown in front of your push-all-buttons-at-once toddler.
Un-humble yourself,
When you do your best, people notice. When your change is evident, some will champion it, others won't like it. While you work towards limiting or even abolishing your presence arond the people in the later group, allow praise to penetrate you. However small of a transformation deserves internalized praise, for that is one way to keep the brain engaged and motivated. Bear in mind I am not talking about the dopamine seeking social media flaunting we sometimes do to feel good about what we are doing. It is the quiet and wholesome gloating that happens in our journals, in our therapy sessions, around our kitchen counters and in powerful moments of realizations we soak up with our loved ones. Where we finally realize, change is happening and even our brains are here for it.
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