by John Dougherty
Energy Psychology Practitioner
Why indeed? Fearing positive change seems to make no sense at all on the surface, yet believe it or not it is a very prevalent occurrence. Here is my take on this common phenomenon.
When we have negative beliefs about ourselves or have suffered a trauma, we create new beliefs and conditions in our life to provide a level of safety which allows us, in our minds, to survive. So even if this new version of our life is distressing at times, it feels at least “survivable”.
For example, a new career position automatically provides a new identity for us, along with new beliefs and all the support from others agreeing with who we now are. Except of course that now we have to worry about letting these others down – they have needs they want us to fulfill and usually we don’t want to disappoint them.
The result is that many of us have, in effect, spent our whole lives building a “castle of safety”, and now – to consider giving it all up? That is very difficult. We are not just concerned with feeling better because giving up our “safety castle” could create a whole new trauma that would result from starting our lives all over again – or so it would seem to us.
The point is that letting go of the original trauma or belief and moving into a much better life necessarily includes giving up these “second-order” features of your life that you have grown to rely upon for your survival.
So, in many ways major life changes can be a major source of distress in life. Even when deep down we aren’t really happy with the way things are, our experiences with change have often been stressful and even negative.
It is perhaps little wonder then that we often avoid change wherever possible.
“Be it ever so humble there is no place like home” says the old song. We might re-word it, “Be it ever so hurtful, limiting, or even frightening, there is no place like the familiar (our home base).”
This seems to explain the paradox of our fear of even beneficial changes when they occur. They threaten our carefully constructed security systems, especially when we aren’t sure how they will unfold. Obviously, this fear has to be addressed in any form of therapy pursued.
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