Why We Choose to Stay Stuck
Understanding the neuroscience behind why we resist change and how to break free from limiting patterns.
WHY WE CHOOSE TO STAY STUCK
Neuroscience is a vast and complex field of study. Even the most advanced scientists can only understand so much about the human brain; it is an ever-evolving science. However, we do know a great deal, and we have answers to some difficult questions, such as: Why can't I move beyond this thought, idea, issue, area of my life, or behavior?
We're Wired to Create Predictable Habits to Help Us — Yet Some Can Derail Us
Staying as we are has its benefits. We are wired for predictability and safety. Predictability reduces the number of decisions we need to make each day, conserves energy, and helps create routines that improve efficiency.
Some patterns or habits may have originally developed to provide safety or predictability. Over time, however, the role they play may no longer serve us. The pattern needs to change to create new and healthier ways of being. Yet even when we know that change could be positive, the very notion of making that change can activate a warning system. Our brain's security guard—the amygdala—fires up to protect us.
What's Going On in Our Brains
Behind the scenes, the amygdala determines whether a situation is too threatening to handle and signals the release of cortisol, a stress hormone. This activates our self-defensive responses—fight, flight, freeze, or fawn—and temporarily reduces access to our thinking brain, the prefrontal cortex, so that our energy can focus on self-preservation. Decision-making and critical thinking are pushed aside while our emotional brain takes over to protect us and maintain the status quo.
It is important to note, however, that the amygdala helps us avoid threats of any kind—even imagined ones.
When our minds think:
Pushing people away keeps me from being taken advantage of.
—or—
If I say yes to my boss's request to take on more work, I have a better chance of getting that promotion.
These thoughts can trigger the amygdala, even when the assumptions behind them are irrational. The thoughts and feelings themselves are real, but they may not be based in reality. Our brains perceive a threat to our well-being and safety, even if the threat is only imagined. The amygdala simply responds with the tools it has.
How to Get Unstuck
Our thought patterns can become so closely linked to our identity that the idea of change can feel as though we are killing off a part of ourselves.
Much of it comes down to our beliefs and how limiting or irrational they may be. If we fundamentally believe that we aren't capable, are undeserving, are too weak to change, or simply don't have a compelling enough reason to do so, we will resist change.
So, how do we get unstuck?
Often, it happens when the pain of staying stuck reaches its peak and can no longer be tolerated. We find ourselves on our proverbial knees, saying, I give. Enough.
When that happens—and when the vision of life on the other side becomes strong, vivid, and compelling—that is when we muster the courage to move forward.
That is when we begin to get unstuck.
