Change is a bitch

Hey there ,

In this week’s edition:

• When everything shifts at once

• The instinct to fix what’s “out there”

• How early conditioning shapes our reality

• Walls as course correction

• Becoming our own steady presence

Every corner of my life seems to be shifting over the past couple of months.

Projects I care deeply about lost momentum.

Family conflicts bubbled up.

A vacation I was looking forward to was a shitshow.

Then illness.

All at once.

Damn.

My first instinct is to fix everything out there.

Make a plan.

Change the strategy.

Get busier, even while sick.

Adjust the people and push harder.

I know that move well.

And I also know better.

I’m starting to see this all as a gift…course correction

But still…damn.

When this much starts moving at the same time, it gets my attention.

The Urge to Fix

Most of us live with a quiet project running in the background:

Make things better.

We’re anxious or depressed.

We’re underpaid.

Our partner is difficult.

The thing we use to take the edge off doesn’t work like it used to.

And for us parents, yes—sometimes the kids drive us nuts.

So we set out to change the people, places, and things.

On the surface, that makes sense, and it may work for the moment.

But often these choices bring relief that is not sustainable.

We are restless, irritable, discontent… a place that feels oddly familiar.

I know all of this, but I’m fighting the instinct to try to “fix” the external circumstances.

The Short-Term Solutions

Medication can help.

So can changing jobs, partners, routines, or parenting strategies.

Sometimes those shifts are necessary.

But when they’re used to avoid something deeper, they don’t last.

Anxiety and depression aren’t thinking problems to be erased.

They’re signals.

Relationship conflict usually is too.

The patterns—inside us and around us—are pointing somewhere.

Where It Took Root

When we were young, we learned how to survive by adapting to the people who had power over us.

We absorbed their beliefs, their fears, and their unfinished business.

I learned to blame, fix, be tough, and to put on a show to distract from the family conflicts.

Even caring adults pass along their frameworks, and their blind spots.

We took those ideas in and called them truth.

It kept us connected, but it often rerouted our authentic expression and creative path.

What now feels like limitation — once helped us belong.

The Walls

As I’ve found out, AGAIN…eventually, whatever emotions we’re resisting will apply pressure.

Jung said, “What we resist not only persists, it will grow in size.”

Projects stall.

Relationships strain.

The body speaks up.

These walls aren’t punishment.

They’re course correction—if we’re willing to listen.

It’s tempting to find a label, a diagnosis, or a “toxic” person to blame, and aim all our energy there.

I did that for years.

I’m tempted to do it now.

It doesn’t work.

The same patterns just kept showing up in different forms.

No matter how much inner work we do, another opportunity to heal will emerge.

Might as well get used to it.

Turning Inward

After the surface strategies stop working, something else is required.

We’re asked to feel what we avoided for a long time—anger, fear, shame, grief.

I’ve increased my support and am beginning to find the grief under the confusion.

With real support, the emotions are beginning to move.

The blame game is usually part of the process.

Believe me, if you heard my inner dialogue about “them” over the last weeks…the “no blame” rule has been ignored.

We blame everyone and situations.

Then, with reflections on the roots of the pain, we blame parents, teachers, or early environments.

We have to learn to look at what happened to us without the blame.

Blaming is an understandable response. And I’m not beating myself up about it.

It’s part of the process.

But staying there doesn’t lead anywhere new.

At some point, we have to step off the blame train.

Staying With What’s Real

I’ve learned that as buried emotions release, the nervous system begins to settle.

I’m not there yet, but I’ve been down this road enough to know.

That’s why I’m writing this…to remind myself.

With quiet time and support, we become more able to tolerate life as it is—including our own honest responses to it.

From there, change starts to feel different.

Less frantic.

Less forced.

The choices we make come from who we actually are, not who we learned to be to survive.

Coming Home

Over time, we learn to offer ourselves the steadiness we needed back then.

We become our own reliable presence.

Our own advocate.

Our own best friend.

From that place, change isn’t a reaction. It unfolds.

And with it comes a real chance at peace, joy, and the kind of love most of us have been reaching for—sometimes without knowing it.

I’m not quite there, but I’m committed to continuing to access support and trusting the inner work process…it always works.

Is any of this relatable? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Just hit reply (we publish a monthly roundup of your experience, strength, and hope).

Healing,

Bob

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