Why we resist the thing we most want
A few months ago, I was neck-deep in knowing that something needed to shift in my business. I'd been feeling it for a while — that quiet, persistent pull toward something more aligned, more authentically me. But I wanted some additional guidance around it, so I dusted off my Tarot of the Spirit oracle deck and pulled 4 cards.
I create intentions for each card I pull, and Card #1 represented "What I am currently seeing."
I pulled The Death Card.
Gulp.
I almost discarded the whole pull because the Death Card, at first glance, is scary and just feels bad.
But I've been using this deck for a long time, and the cards are always spot on — even the ones I don't want to see. In reading the deck's guidebook interpretation, The Death Card is actually all about change. Hmmm… right on point with where I was in my business.
It signaled:
A major transformation
That I'd need to go into it alone. Because if I'm making this business more Paige, I can't have outside influences. That's what got me off track in the first place.
That I'd face my darkest fears first — the darkest hour before dawn — before new ways of living could accommodate who I was becoming.
And then this line stopped me: "Change is the basis of all manifestation."
Change can be scary and painful, yet we must face it if we're to grow. I had a bit of an "ugh" response, but I also knew deep inside I had to make foundational shifts in my business that felt more aligned, more authentic so that I could be a better coach.
Here's the paradox: we've had painful associations with change, so we fear it. And yet, like death and taxes, change is inevitable.
We see this every January. We set resolutions with the best of intentions. This is the year I'll finally ______ and by mid-February, most have quietly dissolved. Not because we lack discipline. But because we're trying to force change from the outside in, while our nervous system is still holding on to the familiar for dear life. We're asking ourselves to leap without ever addressing why our feet feel cemented to the ground.
So what do we do? Face it head-on? Our nervous system will have a lot to say about that, and we'll most likely abandon it because we're wired to resist change. Bury our heads in the sand? Sounds nice, but that never really works in the long run.
What if we just turned slightly toward change? Not embracing it. Not white-knuckling it. Just… opening one eye to it, softly. With an open mind and the intention of just understanding it a bit more?
Because the reason we resist so fiercely isn't that there's something inherently wrong with us. It's because our bodies and emotions remember. A painful experience gets linked to change, and our nervous system can't differentiate between "Big T" and "little t" trauma. A memory of fear is enough to trigger a stress response (aka fight, flight, or freeze). And we get stuck. Unwilling to move toward what we want, or bracing for the inevitable, distracting ourselves into believing we don't have to shift anything at all.
What if there were a safer way to engage with change? What if we explored our relationship with it and discovered it might not be as scary as we think? More often than not, there's wisdom in the journey, and if we stop and reflect on our past sojourns through change, we're usually better off for having walked through it.
We might rediscover that it's actually okay to be in change, and that when we're in the messy unknown of it, lo and behold, we're actually OK.
That most likely, there's a new, more authentic, more beautiful part of ourselves emerging on the other side.
Because like the caterpillar, she needs to be in her messy, gooey pupa before she can emerge as who she really is — a beautiful butterfly.
Something to sit with:
Where in your life are you resisting a change that you know you need or must take? What might be one small way you can turn toward it, even if it feels a bit messy and unknown?
I've been sitting with these questions myself. And I'll be unpacking more about change in the coming weeks — about how to actually befriend it. Not just survive it, but move through it with your nervous system feeling supported, and to even, dare I say it, do bold change, safely.
If this resonated and you want to go deeper into your own relationship with change, I'd love to have you join my email list where I'm sharing more on this — and something special that's in the works.