Why Change is so Difficult
By: Cindy Engel Phd
Tags: Psychology, Biology, Brain Plasticity, Progress, Change

Why Change is so Difficult

Paradoxically, there is nothing about our body which is fixed. All our constituent parts are continually broken down and remade. Individual brain cells can live for decades whereas red blood cells are destroyed and remade after only 120 days. A complete rebuild of our skeleton takes about 10 years but our entire skin surface is replaced in a matter of weeks.

Why, then, do we continue to look the same, with the same scars, enduring the same health problems? Why are we not refreshed anew? If our physical structure is not fixed, what is constraining us to be rebuilt as our same imperfect selves?

We can blame Life with a capital ‘L’. One of its defining characteristics is an ability to self-organise a relatively stable state against all onslaughts. Conditions around us, within us and through us are constantly changing, yet our living system manages to maintain a stable working environment for our cells. It takes energy to do this; energy to hold ourselves together against the dissipating pull of entropy, retaining enough molecular stability to stop us dissipating into a cloud of randomness.

Stability is key to survival.

At the same time, though, our system needs enough plasticity (ability to change) to allow the necessary processes of life. Our body must grow, age, repair, fight off pathogens, and reproduce. We must do this while strictly controlled around the central hub of sameness.

Living systems show a sophisticated balance between stability and change.

This balance is incredibly important to health and well-being but does not (as we might expect) pivot around optimal health.

We ‘hold on’ to the impacts of past events for good reason. Scar tissue is stronger than the tissue it repaired, and so maintaining scar tissue is adaptive — it keeps the area stronger. After all, that area must have been weak to be injured. The downside is that scar tissue can restrict movement and hinder flexibility, but this is a price to pay for strength.

Our immune system also carefully balances change and stability. It changes in response to harmful invaders and locks in that change so that it can remember these invaders next time they show up. The downside to reactivity is all sorts of uncomfortable symptoms and the danger of slipping too far into attacking our own tissues (auto-immune diseases).

Self-regulation seems to stabilize changes that have been useful; natural selection works to the rule, ‘If it has kept us alive till now, keep it.’

This is also true on a psychological level. Ideally, we have enough psychological stability to function in society but, at the same time, enough psychological plasticity to learn and adapt to changing situations. Just as with physical changes, what has worked (or been necessary) in the past will be carried forward. If your life has been ruthlessly traumatic, chronic hyper-vigilance is adaptive, providing readiness to protect you from future onslaughts even though this will impinge on your health (survival is a priority).

Many of our physical, emotional and psychological states are not optimal for health but are persistent survival strategies locked in against change.

Change is severely constrained by living systems.

Uncontrolled physiological change and unregulated behaviour threaten survival. Unconstrained cell division is cancer. Unconstrained enthusiasm is mania. A lack of self-regulation is ill-health and ultimately death.

Perhaps, then, we can define a therapist as someone who offers change to our systems. If we are not offered such an opportunity, we inevitably remain more-or-less the same — because that is what bodies do but a good therapist will not enforce change.

Bodywork offers a somatosensory negotiation about what is still necessary for you, what is no longer helpful, and what feels great to let go. We know that it is not good carrying around loads of tension in the body and there are many ways to release tightness and emotional gripping BUT it may not be in our best interests to let go of tension if the threat is still current; if we are, say, living with a violent partner. We may need our defences in place. However, if you are stuck in a hyper-vigilant state from an experience which is unlikely to be repeated, it may be safe to turn down the volume to something more manageable.

A good practitioner will offer suggestions for new ways of being, assessing any resistance to change.

· As I stretch and open a tight painful shoulder, I assess any willingness to allow a new open shoulder to remain.

· As I encourage your fear-based breathing pattern to change, I assess your response to a new temporary taste of relaxation. Your system might accept the new way of breathing or pop back to being alert.

If you are finding it hard to change something about yourself, or not getting the changes you want in your clients, it is worth considering this delicate balance between stability vs change.

Life is playing the long game.