Understanding the tension between safety, uncertainty, and growth
22 Dec – written by Katrin Kemmerzehl – Blog
Sometimes we know something needs to change long before we know what to do about it.
Perhaps a relationship no longer feels the way it once did. Perhaps work leaves you feeling exhausted, disconnected, or unlike yourself. Perhaps you find yourself saying yes when you want to say no, constantly worrying about disappointing people, or feeling stuck in the same patterns despite your best efforts to change them.
For some people, change may involve questioning a career path that no longer feels meaningful. For others, it may mean navigating a relationship difficulty, recovering from burnout, adjusting to a life transition, or coming to understand themselves differently after learning they are autistic, ADHD, or AuDHD.
Often, people come to therapy carrying a mixture of feelings. Part of them longs for something different. Another part feels frightened, uncertain, or simply tired.
This can be confusing. We often assume that if we really wanted change, we would just make it happen. Yet human beings are rarely that straightforward.
Wanting change and resisting it at the same time is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It is part of being human.
The pull of what we know
One of the reasons change can feel so difficult is that even painful situations are familiar.
Many of the ways we think, relate, protect ourselves, and move through the world developed for good reasons. At some point, they helped us feel safer, more accepted, or more connected.
Perhaps you learned to keep the peace by putting other people’s needs first. Perhaps you became highly independent because relying on others felt disappointing. Perhaps you learned to hide your struggles because you worried about being a burden. Or perhaps you became skilled at adapting yourself to fit in, even when doing so came at a personal cost.
These responses often begin as adaptations rather than choices. Many of the ways we learn to relate to ourselves and others develop in response to our early relationships and experiences, becoming patterns that can continue long after the circumstances that first shaped them have passed (Bowlby, 1988).
The difficulty is that what once protected us can sometimes begin to limit us.
In therapy, people are often relieved to discover that their struggles are not signs of weakness or failure. More often, they are signs of strategies that once made sense but may no longer be serving them in the same way.
Understanding this can make it easier to respond to ourselves with curiosity rather than criticism.
Why do we keep repeating the same patterns?
Many of us notice similar themes appearing throughout our lives.
We may find ourselves drawn to familiar dynamics in relationships. We may keep having the same arguments, feeling the same disappointments, or wondering why we seem to end up in situations that feel strangely familiar.
Someone might repeatedly find themselves in one-sided relationships where they do most of the emotional work. Another person may struggle to ask for help, even when they need it. Someone else might find themselves constantly seeking reassurance, yet never quite feeling reassured.
This can be frustrating, especially when we genuinely want things to be different.
Sometimes these patterns reflect unfinished emotional business. Without realising it, we may continue searching for experiences that were missing earlier in life. We hope that this time we will be understood, chosen, appreciated, or loved in the way we longed for.
As Gottlieb (2019) observes, many of us return to familiar emotional territory not because we enjoy suffering, but because part of us hopes the story might end differently this time.
The longing itself makes sense. The difficulty is that we can end up looking for healing in places that recreate the original wound (Shedler, 2010).
Part of growth involves recognising when an old hope is keeping us stuck. This can bring sadness. It may involve grieving what we did not receive and accepting that the past cannot be rewritten.
Yet there can also be freedom in this. When we stop trying to earn what should have been freely given, we create space for relationships that feel more mutual, supportive, and genuine.
The uncertainty that comes with change
One of the hardest parts of change is not knowing what comes next.
We may sense that we have outgrown something, that a relationship has shifted, or that an old way of coping no longer fits in the way it once did. Yet moving forward often means stepping into territory that feels unfamiliar.
Most of us would prefer certainty. We want reassurance that things will work out. We want to know that if we make a difficult decision, set a boundary, change careers, reduce masking, speak more honestly about our needs, or take a risk, it will all be worth it.
Life rarely offers that kind of certainty.
There is often a period where we do not yet know how things will unfold. We may find ourselves caught between what feels familiar and what feels possible.
This can feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it can feel frightening.
The philosopher Albert Camus (2013) recognised that life does not always provide the clear answers we would like. Yalom (1980) similarly observed that uncertainty is one of the unavoidable realities of being human. Much of our distress comes not from uncertainty itself, but from our understandable wish for life to feel more predictable than it is.
Yet uncertainty is also where many of life’s possibilities live. If everything stayed familiar, very little would ever change.
The philosopher Nietzsche (2006) encouraged people to think of life not as a process of becoming someone else, but of becoming more fully themselves.
Growth may not be about getting rid of uncertainty, but about trusting ourselves enough to take the next step, even when the way ahead is not entirely clear. Change is often less about becoming a different person and more about growing into who we already are
Listening to what our feelings are telling us
Many people spend a long time telling themselves that what they are going through is not serious enough to deserve attention.
They compare themselves to others. They tell themselves they should be coping better. They keep going, often long after things have started to feel difficult.
Sometimes people apologise for crying in therapy. Others quickly explain away experiences that have affected them deeply, as though they need to prove that their feelings are reasonable before they can be taken seriously.
Yet most of us would not speak to a friend in the same way.
Research on self-compassion suggests that we tend to be far kinder and more understanding towards other people than we are towards ourselves (Neff, 2003). We readily recognise someone else’s pain, but often struggle to acknowledge our own.
The reality is that emotional pain is not a competition. Someone else having a difficult experience does not make your own experience any less real.
Often, meaningful change begins when we stop judging ourselves for how we feel and start becoming curious about what our feelings might be telling us.
Our emotions are not always comfortable, but they can draw our attention to what matters to us, what hurts, what feels missing, and what may need our care or attention.
Therapy as a place to practise
Most meaningful change happens gradually. It rarely arrives as a moment of certainty or a sudden breakthrough. More often, it begins with a feeling that something is no longer working, or a growing sense that life could be different in some way.
Change is rarely a straight line. There may be setbacks, moments of doubt, or days when old habits feel easier.
Often, it starts with paying attention to something you have been carrying for a long time. Perhaps a relationship keeps leaving you feeling unseen. Perhaps you are exhausted from trying to meet everyone else’s expectations. Perhaps you have spent years masking and adapting to fit in. You may beginning to wonder what life might feel like if you did not have to work so hard, or if life is good enough as it is, even if it’s not perfect.
If part of you is longing for change while another part feels hesitant, cautious, or unsure, that is a very human place to find yourself. Change often involves balancing our need for safety with our desire to grow.
Sometimes change begins with nothing more dramatic than becoming curious. Curious about why certain patterns keep repeating. Curious about what you need. Curious about whether things could be different.
You do not need to have everything figured out before you begin.
If this resonates with you, therapy can offer a space to explore these questions at your own pace. Together, we can make sense of what feels difficult, understand the patterns that may be keeping you stuck, and think about what moving forward might look like for you.
Often, change happens one conversation, one insight, and one small step at a time.
If you’d like to explore this, please feel free to get in touch.
References
- Bowlby, J. (1988). A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. Basic Books.
- Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press.
- Gottlieb, L. (2019). Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
- Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85–101.
- Norcross, J. C., & Lambert, M. J. (2019). Psychotherapy Relationships That Work (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
- Rogers, C. R. (1961). On Becoming a Person. Houghton Mifflin.
- Shedler, J. (2010). The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 65(2), 98–109.
- Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. Basic Books.
Katrin Kemmerzehl
I am a qualified psychotherapeutic counsellor in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Please get in touch if you’re interested in arranging a consultation.