Why Is Creating Good Change So Hard?
People tell me all the time, “I work really hard to create good change in my life and I still wake up day after day feeling the same and stuck in the same situations. Maybe it changes a little, but not much. I’m tired of working this hard and not really seeing anything change.”
Why is the change you want so hard to achieve? To answer that, we have to look at what is being threatened by change. Is it that you just don’t like change? Is it that you are stubborn or just plain dumb—that you can’t see how much better life would be? Nope!
It’s your survival mechanism that puts up the strong resistance to change. Take this free, scientifically validated personality test( to get a detailed picture of your survival mechanism.) In a very real and primal way, you feel that change will kill you. But how can this be true? Rationally, you know that the change you’re working for is good for you. But it isn’t the thinking part of your brain that stores this survival mechanism, so you can’t reason with it about change (or anything, for that matter).
What stores the survival mechanism is your sense of self. It stores how you feel about being yourself. This part of the brain is 2 ½ years old. That’s when it stopped developing and started to build around itself a wall of resistance to change—to make sure that your mechanism for staying alive stays intact. (Both in a feeling way and literally—your nerve cells are surrounded by myelin sheaths that prevent physical change.)
Think of it this way. . .you’ve seen those news stories about an abused baby who is taken from her abusive parent and placed in a loving and nurturing home. You know that she will be much better off in her new home, right? But, she clings for dear life to the person who has abused her. Why? Because she has no rational, thinking capacity yet—there is no way to reason with her about this change. The only survival she’s ever known is that abusive parent, and so she clings.
The same is true with your sensory brain. It will hold onto your Sensory Quotient pattern of survival for dear life, even though you can see rationally that over time, this survival mechanism has meant that things only got harder for you—life has either gotten worse, or it has become harder and harder to make good things happen.
Quanta Change gives you a way to break through the wall of resistance and tell your sensory brain that the change you want really is safe and good for you. Even better, Quanta Change uncovers the natural well-being that has been hidden beneath your survival mechanism all this time—the source of the good that you want in your life is actually within you and just waiting to be uncovered.
Sara Avery is the Executive Director of Quanta Change, and she’s been guiding people through this process for the past 16 years. Click to get your free, personalized SQ report and to sign up for a free, 30-minute call with her to understand how your SQ generates the biggest challenge in your life.