I’ve been asking myself one question for years, “What is the thing that allows and causes change? Why can I change some things in my life, but other things I seem to stay stuck in a never ending loop with?”
In my work—ten years as an energy healer and self-actualisation mentor—I also see both sides. I see incredible shifts, just like myself. And I see people with deep awareness stay painfully stuck in the same loops, just like myself. But I see this in pretty much every person I know. No one is immune to this, and no one seems to get success in changing these stuck patterns. And it’s DEFINITELY NOT through any lack of trying.
I have multiple areas of my life that I feel stuck in, but for the ease of being relatable I am going to only talk about my struggle with money.
I struggle to bring in a consistent, comfortable income. And even when I do, I don’t manage it well. It’s a fact. I can make a million excuses, but the truth is, I don’t create a feeling of safety or stability. It’s feast or famine.
And I’m acutely aware of this. I know what I feel. I know where it comes from. But that awareness hasn’t changed the struggle. If anything, it made me feel like more of a failure: I know better, so why can’t I do better? And I have continued in the this loop.
Why? Why have I not been able to change this? I have done an insane amount of work to change it, yet nothing has given me a breakthrough until now. So what’s the real foundation for change then? And this is what I have discovered.
It’s safety.
After a decade of looking at the soul, the ego, and the spiritual, I feel like I have found the missing piece in the most practical place: the nervous system. And what I am learning is blowing my mind.
Here’s my discovery simplified: We don’t change because we don’t feel safe to change.
Let me explain.
In all my soul readings over the past decade, I noticed something. Every person’s story is unique. But the way those stories play out—the emotions, the stuckness, the self-judgement, the patterns—it’s always the same. We all only have a handful of responses. And these responses are hard wired into our nervous systems as absolute protection. Like an iron impenetrable curtain that comes up, with out you even needing to think about. It just happens.
Our body is a chemical factory. Our emotions are literal chemical reactions in the body, this is nervous system response. And our nervous system has one main job: scan for threat. Safe? Or danger? Respond. This happens in a millisecond. We cannot separate ourselves from these responses they are involuntary, we even have emotional responses when we sleep.
When the nervous system senses threat, it doesn’t ask your rational mind for permission. It throws you into a survival state. Fight. Flight. Freeze. Fawn.
We learn these states in childhood. As a child, you had to figure out: How do I stay safest? Do I make myself small (freeze)? Do I try to fix it (fawn)? Do I fight? Do I run away? There are no words for this. It’s a chemical setting in your body, a deep defence mechanism. This response equals survival. And therefore the response is translated as safety.
And that’s the loop: Whenever there is a perceived threat our defences come up and we return to what feels “safe” to our nervous system—even if it’s painful. There is safety in the familiarity, and the very strange predictability of the instability. This you are a master of navigating. It is purely unconscious, and it completely runs the show.
So, that financial instability? That’s my familiar. That critical voice saying “you’re a failure”? That’s the familiar soundtrack. My body clings to it because the known, even if it hurts, feels safer than the unknown. The desire for change goes to war with your body’s chemical belief that change is a threat. And Judgement and a ruthless inner dialogue just feeds the threat, and continues to keep you in a very stuck loop.
The safety of the defence mechanism outweighs the safety of wanting something new, and specifically having it.
So how on earth do you change it?
You build a path between where you are to where you want to be. A safe path. A new foundation of safety for your very brilliant nervous system to feel safe where it is and then to show it that it is safe to be where you want to be. And it starts with connection to yourself. Kind connection, giving grace priority.
Grace is understanding, acceptance, compassion, and forgiveness all rolled into one, nothing feels safer than that. Your nervous system is a brilliant defence mechanism. You are not broken or faulty, in fact you are working perfectly. It’s just a matter of bringing the unconscious working to your consciousness in order to get it work the way you want it to.
You do it with kindness. And you repeat it. Step by step you teach your nervous system: This new way is safe, too, and very very comfortable.
This work has changed everything for me. It’s moving my money story from shame, and radical self judgement, which presents and freeze or fawn for me, to repairing my sense of safety. I am loving spreadsheets and budgets! I have never done this before in my life!
The beautiful thing about this is that it’s not about our specific story keeping us stuck, but about the human biological system responding to it. When you tend to your nervous system with patience and grace, you don’t just change a behaviour. You change the ground your life grows from.
You move from surviving, to finally feeling safe enough to live.
If you would like to learn more, you can reach me via email:
selfmasterylove@gmail.com
Picture credit: Sebastian Unrau
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