8 hard things you need to hear as you set out to make a major life change — Part 2
5. Call out familiarity and comfort
It is human nature to gravitate towards what we are familiar with. And yet, what we are familiar with or consider to be normal, does not always equate to what is healthy and aligned with our current values.
Familiarity and comfort are not the same as safety and security.
We can sometimes miss the ability to see this in adulthood. Freud uses the term repetition compulsion to describe how we can unconsciously replicate our childhood experiences in our adult lives.
For a long time, staying silent, agreeable, and blending into the background was super comfortable and familiar to me. It created a false sense of safety. After experiencing rejection, dismissal, and judgment as a result of expressing myself truthfully, I formed the belief that the safest alternative for me to keep relationships with others was to shrink down, nod, and stay silent.
Not drawing attention to myself in any way, and holding back on expressing my own opinions was normal to me. It was easier than over-explaining in a desperate attempt to be heard, spiraling into exhaustion and confusion, which ultimately led to a sinking feeling of defeat.
Shutting down became a coping mechanism— how I stayed safe in childhood. It is still the first thing I automatically turn to when I become stressed and overwhelmed. Simply becoming aware of my tendency to do this was a huge step in my own growth.
As I began to cultivate changes in my life, I started to see that this same behavior that was necessary for survival at a different time in my life, was now holding me back from reaching my full potential in adulthood.
Shutting down is no longer a beneficial option, especially in my role as a parent. As an adult, I now have the agency to make healthier choices. Accessing those choices starts by being able to recognize and take care of my own needs. By bringing awareness to my behavior of shutting down, I can see how it has been limiting my ability to express myself authentically for most of my life AND I can also recognize how it protected me when I needed it to.
Speaking about it now has allowed me to remove the shame and begin re-learning that I am safe now, as an adult, to be able to communicate effectively with my integrity intact. And that I can handle the discomfort of being potentially misunderstood. My own role and responsibility ends there. This is a practice and I must remind myself consistently that how others receive or respond to me is not mine to take on.
This journey will call you to face things that were considered normal in your formative years and recognize how they may be holding you back in adulthood. In doing this work, it can be helpful to share your experiences with a safe, neutral person who can help you to gain more perspective and question what you may be holding onto from your past that is no longer needed in the present.
6. Why matters more than how
This has been a stumbling block for most of my life. I’m a planner, an analytical thinker, and a methodical list maker. I struggle heavily with lingering in unknown terrain, hence this road map! However; my intense need to know how I was going to get from point A to point B, caused me to exhaust valuable energy into something that could never be as clear-cut and defined as I’d anticipated.
The most powerful piece of insight I have been given on my own journey has been to focus on the why. What are your reasons for wanting to make this change? I found that when my vision became clear as to why I wanted to stop drinking and how I wanted to feel as a result, it released my rigidity around the need for specific details on how exactly I was going to do it.
Holding my “why” at the forefront of my mind opened up a space for my imagination and creativity to come back online to help out with how.
Bottom line: Keep your focus on why you are embarking on this path and the how will gradually unfold, one small step at a time.
7. The cocoon phase is necessary
There will be times where you will feel alone. In the early stages, the quiet can be super confronting and scary. This is to be expected! It may take some time to settle into the space that was previously filled to the brim with distractions. There will be uneasiness and restlessness in the free-floating space of “what now?” Once again, your brain loves familiarity and comfort.
In order for a change to take root, you must be willing to push through the discomfort that comes with being alone with yourself.
We tend to engage in many things in direct effort to avoid being with ourselves. We also continue to put ourselves in situations that are not healthy in order to avoid disappointing others or being left behind. This is especially challenging when you are faced with the pressure of engaging in social events where alcohol is present or things that are simply not healthy for your mental/emotional state. If you are still second-guessing, this is your permission to say no and sit this one out. Politely declining in order to preserve your sobriety and well-being is necessary AND can be super uncomfortable at first.
The concepts of rest and downtime can be triggering.
Dr. Nicole LePera @the.holistic.psychologist says we can actually become addicted to chaos and our own stress hormones. If our bodies have been existing in survival mode for an extended period of time, this state of activation is familiar to us. Therefore; the absence of stress and chaos can actually feel threatening because it may have been all we’ve known. We were never meant to live for extended periods in these fight/flight states. There are ways we can teach ourselves cues of safety and slowly learn to orient ourselves to a slower pace.
Once the noise dies down, you can really get to know yourself. Take this time to get clear on what really matters to you, what your needs really are, explore the things that bring you joy, rest, and reconnect with your body. I am currently emerging from this phase once again. I believe we fluctuate in and out of it as we continue to learn and grow. Alone time is how I replenish and recharge. I use this time to gather information, read books, listen to podcasts, and discover what resonates with me. Then I am able to integrate the new knowledge to make better sense of experiences in my life.
Allowing the quiet to expand helped me to begin listening to my own voice in decision making and lessened the impulse to look outside of myself for answers.
8. Confidence comes last
When I was younger, I firmly believed that there was a distinct difference between myself and the people who achieved what, in my mind, were defined as great things. That difference was confidence. I believed the people whom I admired from afar had this eluding factor that I simply accepted as lacking within myself. The movie stars living out their dreams on the big screen, the authors with books on New York Times bestseller lists, even people who could successfully ace job interviews always seemed to be in a category that I believed was unreachable for me. This “have it or you don’t” mentality is very toxic and limiting. I believed I needed confidence before I could start working towards my dreams. It turns out that there are many things happening behind the scenes on the path to success that are rarely showcased or talked about.
One of the most valuable insights I received while going through my training to become a life coach was this: confidence comes last.
On the road to confidence, there are three preceding steps: commitment, courage, and capability.
First, you have to make a solid and firm commitment towards a goal. This commitment solidifies your choice and allows you to begin moving forward in the direction you want to go. Courage comes when you take the first step despite the fear and the discomfort of the unknown. It is present as you take the first intentional action despite the nerves and uncertainty. Then, as you slowly venture over the threshold of trying something new, you begin to build capability. With each new experience, you begin to feel your capability expand.
One of my favorite poets, Victoria Erickson, says “Consistency is an underappreciated form of intentional magic disguised as a mundane doing.”
The more consistent we are with small, intentional actions in our daily lives, the more capable and confident we become.
It is hard to think about how much is lost while waiting for confidence to show up first. Thankfully, we no longer have to. It all starts with one promise, one commitment, to yourself. One that envisions something more. And the courage to take the first step forward. It all starts with you.
©Laura Weston 2023
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Laura is a sensitive soul who believes in the healing power of writing. This space is a glimpse into her inner world as she uses language and story as an act of self-care. This is a place for hope, personal growth, inspiration, and reflection. A world that finds beauty in the subtle details, where we can invite the truths of our humanity to come to the surface and be seen.
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