For a long time, I believed that if something was meant for my growth, it would feel relieving, expansive and like a deep exhale. What I didn’t understand then was that real growth rarely arrives as comfort; it arrives as a disruption and leaves us unsettled and wondering why change is so hard.

The change I’m speaking about isn’t the kind we usually talk about. It’s not about changing a habit or improving a routine. It’s not about eating differently, exercising more, or getting better sleep. Those changes matter, and are often necessary, but they’re not the changes that tend to unravel us from the inside out.

There are quieter and more unsettling kinds of change. The kind that requires us to reshape our inner habits and ultimately changes the very relationship we have with ourselves.

This change shifts how we think about ourselves, how we relate to our emotions and how we learned to stay safe in the world and our relationships by pleasing, appeasing, shrinking, or staying quiet. The habits that determine whether we trust ourselves, set respectful boundaries, and act from self-love or whether we abandon ourselves in order to belong.

Change like this unsettles the nervous system. It threatens what has kept us safe. And even when we long for it, and know it’s necessary, it can feel frightening, destabilizing, and at times profoundly painful.

Over time, I came to understand that this discomfort is not a sign that something has gone wrong. It’s often a sign that something honest is trying to emerge. I call the discomfort of being stretched into a new version of yourself growth stress.

I didn’t understand any of this at the time. I only knew that something in me was asking to change, and that the change did not feel relieving. It felt deeply unsettling.

I know this not as a concept, but as a lived experience.

Meditation entered my life during a season of suffering. My stress hormones were elevated. My body was tense. I had a confusing and unsettling feeling that something was missing in my life. I was tired of feeling on edge and disconnected from myself. I wanted clarity and inner peace.

And meditation helped. It helped me regulate my nervous system. It helped me breathe more fully. It helped me feel better in the moment.

But what I did not anticipate was this. As my nervous system settled, my awareness expanded. And once I could no longer ignore what I was becoming aware of, everything began to change.

Meditation not only provided stress management but also soothed me. It revealed to me the patterns that had been keeping me stuck and why my life felt empty even though I had so much to feel grateful for.

It showed me the ways I had adapted in order to survive. The habits I had learned so early and lived inside for so long that they felt like who I was, rather than what I had learned to do. It illuminated where I had been appeasing instead of being honest, connected but not always authentic, present for others while quietly absent from myself.

This is where growth stress truly begins.

And the truth is that once we see something, we can’t unsee it, and it becomes a choice point. Either we stay stuck and stagnant, or we begin to grow and evolve into who we were born to become, even if it costs us our comfort.

From a neurobiological perspective, the brain is not wired for truth. It is wired for safety. Familiarity often matters more than fulfillment. What is known can feel safer than what is true, even when that truth is quietly calling us forward.

Over time, we all develop patterns that help us survive. These personality and conditioned patterns are not random. They are intelligent. Each way of responding, each habit of relating, once served a purpose. It helped us stay connected. It helped us belong. It helped us feel safe enough in the world we were born into.

We learned when to speak and when to stay quiet. When to adapt and when to disappear. When to be agreeable and when to hold ourselves back. The Enneagram of personality has been an enlightening map for those of us wanting to cultivate healthier, more empowering relationships with ourselves.

But as we begin to work on that relationship with ourselves, the nervous system remembers these conditioned habits long after the mind begins to question them.

So when we begin to change, even when the change is deeply aligned with our soul and deeper longings, the body can protest. Growth threatens the familiar. Truth disrupts attachment patterns. Authenticity asks us to risk something real, which often requires that we show up differently.

In my own life, this awareness changed my marriage. It changed my relationships. It changed how I showed up in the world.

And it came at a cost that looked like letting go of who I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to live to embrace who I was becoming and a life that felt good to my soul.

There was a point where maintaining what was familiar required more energy than facing the unknown. Where staying the same demanded more from my nervous system than allowing myself to evolve. Where the quiet ache of self-abandonment became louder than the fear of change.

But this liminal space and crossing were not graceful. It was uncomfortable. It was destabilizing. It was painful at times.

This is the part of the journey we do not speak about enough.

The soul does invite us to thrive, but it first asks us to survive the letting go. We let go of roles that once defined us. We loosen our grip on identities that once protected us. We grieve relationships as they were, even when love remains.

And the nervous system feels every bit of it.

This is why insight alone is not enough. This is why understanding our patterns does not automatically free us from them. This is why awakening without support can feel overwhelming.

The truth will set you free, but first it will… unsettle you. Disrupt you. Turn your life upside down.

The truth does not arrive gently simply because it is true.

This is where tools matter. Not tools to fix ourselves. Tools to stay with ourselves.

Meditation and self-compassion taught me how to regulate my nervous system so I could tolerate the truth I was seeing. It gave me the capacity to remain present when my old strategies no longer worked. It allowed me to pause rather than collapse back into what was familiar simply because it felt safer.

Without regulation, awareness can feel unbearable. With regulation, it becomes transformational.

Growth stress is not a sign that something is wrong. More often, it is a sign that something honest is emerging. Something alive. Something that refuses to remain hidden.

But honesty without support can fracture us. Awakening without grounding can overwhelm us. This is why the journey of authenticity requires both compassion and structure. Both nervous system safety and soul courage.

We are not meant to tear ourselves open. We are meant to unfold. And unfolding takes time.

The cost of becoming and growing whole is real. But so is the cost of staying small when your soul is asking for more. What I have learned is this. The body must feel safe enough to release what no longer serves. The nervous system must trust that survival is not at risk.

Only then can the soul lead us forward.

This is not a quick journey. It is a sacred one that threatens our sense of self, and that is why change is so hard.

And you do not need to walk it alone. If you are in a season where change feels destabilizing rather than exciting, I offer one-on-one coaching for people walking this kind of threshold. If you’re seeking a wise and compassionate guide, you can learn more about coaching here.