Navigating the discomfort of positive change: what are the new patterns and how can we welcome them in?
In the process of learning, sometimes adjusting to the positive change can be the hardest step.
Consider this. You’re experiencing a shift you’ve been longing for. What would it feel like?
Perhaps it is marked by a moment of joy or peace or contentment, perhaps a feeling of confidence and ease that makes mountains feel climbable and all obstacles surmountable.
Now imagine that feeling is swiftly accompanied by unease and thoughts like ‘How long will this last?’ and ‘What will end this?’
All that good stuff is tinged by the simple disbelief at the novelty of the moment, its purity or rarity or clarity or all of these things and more.
What could this discomfort, despite the positive, be telling us?
One thing could be that we’re learning a new pattern.
That change, even positive change, takes time to integrate.
From the limited neuroscience I’m aware of I know that while the brain craves novelty, it is also a pattern making machine.
It makes sense.
The amount of information our brains sift in each moment — every sound, smell, taste, thought, and physical sensation — is an enormous mass of data that is constantly being processed to construct and maintain our sense of reality. Without pattern-making it would be impossible for us to navigate and respond to our external world.
Yet, while the brain is great at processing information it doesn’t distinguish between useful or unhelpful patterns.
With each new action we take towards what we want in life we also slowly shift thoughts, feelings and habits. In doing so we create new but unfamiliar patterns.
It is like fluency in another language — or at least as a mono-linguist who longs to be fluent in other languages I imagine — where over time we can think in that new language.
Before fluency things can feel clunky, uncomfortable and difficult.
And so it is the case with change, even positive, intentional change that we want.
The image that comes to mind is like a full renovation of your house. You adjust to the process of renovation, using only certain bits of the house, and then even when complete you are getting used to the new house, so much so you may find yourself looking for something in the place it used to be, a slip back into the old patterns.
That’s all well and good but what could the value of knowing this be?
We’ve quoted Sir John Whitmore before when he talks about how what we’re unaware of controls us, what we’re aware of we can control.
Most likely our gut response to discomfort is resistance or avoidance. But in this case that would mean a return to the old patterns we’re looking to shift.
In knowing that even positive change could bring unease and discomfort we can more easily accept that change rather than resist the discomfort and possibly delay the embedding of that change; like new clothes that can take a bit of wearing to get used to or a new book that takes a bit of reading to get into.
With awareness we can also better understand the discomfort. Is this discomfort an old pattern or is it in fact that this isn’t the right change for us?
With awareness comes discernment from which we can respond intentionally rather than react and repeat old patterns.
So how can we more easily welcome in the change, discomfort and all?
Ruth Rochelle in The Coach’s Journey podcast described adaptation not as changing but collaborating with what is.
Building on Ruth’s idea, what would collaborating with that discomfort look like?
If we think that patterns create habits, in the Inner Game of Tennis, Tim Gallwey wrote that the best way to stop habits is to start new ones. So what could the new habits be that better welcome in the changes we want and are experiencing?
Change, even positive, self-directed change and all its benefits can feel uncomfortable. It can challenge old patterns, habits and ways of thinking. Yet awareness of that change and that discomfort can help us better cooperate with it and welcome it in so that we can more fully step into and learn the way of being we want.
So with that in mind, what positive changes do you want to see in life?
What thoughts and feelings will you have when they come?
What old patterns may get in the way of that change?
What can you do to welcome the change in the face of those old patterns?
If we were all able to lean into the discomfort of creating positive change in our lives, what world could we create?
References
Sir John Whitmore, Coaching for Performance
Tim Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis
The Coach’s Journey podcast, https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast
