Why Positive Change Doesn't Always Work (And What to Do Instead)

Ok Gemma, so you're telling me my back pain is talking to me? That sounds a bit much.

Eventually, when that physical communication goes unheard, other things in our life start to go "wrong." We reach a breaking point — often when people finally take action and see someone: a GP, or a specialist like a psychologist, osteopath, or nutritionist.

At this stage, we are each still working from an old mindset — we think it's like seeing a GP: we go for a consultation, get something to "fix" it, and move on.

By this point, we've forgotten the first and second times we felt that pain when the cycle began, also what was happening in our environment at that time. That could have been a month, a year, or ten years ago — it could even trace back to something we developed as a shy child or an overactive one. In between then and now, we've made countless small adaptations to situations and life. As I mentioned in an earlier post, people don't start out with a depressed or ADHD brain — the brain adapts to its environment. We are always adapting to our environment, whether we're conscious of it or not.

When we reach the point of a "big change," we assume healing will be linear. In reality, healing becomes circular, like a spring. Sometimes as you are healing, it feels like you're back at the beginning, but you are not. You see this in addiction recovery, weight loss, fitness, and recovery from major illness too. Many people say it feels like nothing is changing. Healing is more like the seasons — you'll have summer days, autumn days, winter days, and spring days. What's important to remember is that while we're in it, we don't see the changes happening. We don't notice, day to day, that we're gaining or losing weight — it's only when our clothes don't fit, or someone comments, that we notice. We don't see what's actively happening each day. Often in healing I also see, that the people around notice things, they can't always explain, but you suddenly become different. You are not acting or reacting in the way you used to.

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The first step is becoming what you want to be, and then adapting your environment to suit that. You listen, you learn, you become curious. This means shifting from an unconscious, habitual state — where every day feels the same — toward a present, conscious way of being, where your personal power leads your next move.

In the beginning, moving from comfort (habit) into something different (new behaviour/thought) will naturally bring anxiety and uncomfortable feelings. Emotions are the communicator to the brain — the brain is our survival antenna, but it also needs to conserve energy. So most days we run on automatic, unconscious, because we're doing the same things every day and the brain doesn't need to think or act. But if something alerts the brain, it comes out of "sleep" mode, because it needs to sense what's happening around it. The example I often use: if we walk the same path every day, we walk it without recalling doing so, because we know it so well. But if that path is blocked, or we walk a different one, we need to be alert to walk it safely and learn the new path. Each time we walk the new path, we become more familiar with it — until we are so familiar that the brain goes back into automatic. So anxiety is the awareness; comfort is the ease of the familiar. For those who have worked with me, we go through the comfort cycle together and how it works.

To help you understand what I mean, and the themes behind it, I am going to use the example of meditation because it highlights the different aspects I'm talking about.

Picture someone who meditates. What comes to mind? Possibly someone who stands tall, with an air of confidence — calm, able to take in stress and strain, eyes alive. Their life doesn't seem as chaotic as yours. They seem to be on a smoother path. But no one wakes up one morning a meditator. It takes commitment — trying, learning, trying again, growing.

Here's what typically happens with a new meditator. First, they create the "perfect" environment, sit in the pose, and begin. And begin. And begin. The frustration begins to boil, the expectation, why won't my mind do as it's told and BE QUIET NOW?

The second thing a would-be meditator does is try to fit meditation into an already chaotic schedule. That's really like hiding a doughnut inside an apple. Instead, it needs to become your way of life. It's the same with any change you're chasing — if you want to be more organised, and all you do is write a list, that's not becoming an organised person, that's plonking a doughnut in an apple. But if your behaviour genuinely starts to mimic someone who is organised, the environment changes, because it's no longer about doing the thing — it's about being that person. When my mind gets too much, I meditate and switch it off — the Gemma way — and that personal power means I'm more able to move through my day. We all have this personal power; we just need to choose it over the victim mindset.

As Dr Robert Anthony puts it, if you don't do the choosing, life will choose for you — and it may not be the choice you want.

Same pattern in four completely different lives

I want to show you this same pattern in four completely different lives — a spiritual seeker, a monk, a university student and an indigenous outcast.

Michael Singer, who deliberately built the perfect conditions for peace and found the struggle waiting for him anyway.

In his early twenties Michael Singer, decided to take his spiritual journey further and live more spiritually, dedicating his life to meditating because of how it made him feel. He moved to the woods, in the middle of nowhere. It was perfect — he built the place he wanted and settled in. Then the chattering started. He'd try to meditate and would hear a dog barking. In the middle of nowhere? He'd moved there to get away from dogs barking and mind chatter, and yet here it was, with him. It frustrated him just as it had before he came to the woods. Still, he told himself he'd committed to this and should keep going. Eventually, at a breaking point, he pleaded for help — his point of surrender. To cut a long story short: as he began listening to his inner voice, things started to change. One day, out of the blue, he got a call from a college requesting an interview. At first he resisted greatly — he didn't want to teach. Eventually he talked himself into going. At the interview, they asked what he'd like to teach. He had a degree in economics, but he answered, "I'd like to teach people how to quiet their mind." The college accepted. That was the moment his life changed, and he began living the life he wanted.

Mingyur Rinpoche, who had the life most people would call idyllic — raised in a Buddhist village, surrounded by a loving family.

Mingyur Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist master, speaks about his battle with the chattering mind and panic attacks. His father wanted to teach him meditation, but he describes himself as a "lazy boy" who wanted the benefits of meditation but didn't like to meditate. As he moved forward with the different levels of his life, at each turning point the chattering and panic returned. Each time, he learned more and progressed and his chattering mind became his friend. His life improved, step by step, toward the life he wanted. It's a fascinating story, he's now a world-renowned Buddhist speaker and teacher.

Then there's Sarah Langdon, whose struggle didn't arrive through a choice at all —but by an uninvited guest.

Sarah Langdon, whose TED Talk "The Voices in My Head" I came across through the "Drop the Disorder" movement. At university, Sarah outwardly seemed to be enjoying student life, but underneath she was insecure, filled with fear, and deeply frightened — of other people, failure, the future, and the emptiness she felt within. She was skilled at hiding it, presenting herself as s confident, outgoing person.

One day, everything changed. Leaving a seminar, humming and fumbling with her bag just as she'd done a hundred times before, she heard a voice calmly observe, "She is leaving the room." She turned around — there was no one there — but the clarity and certainty of the voice was unmistakable. The voice persisted, narrating everything she did in the third person. It wasn't sinister or disturbing, but even then it was clear it had something to communicate about her emotions. Her first mistake, she says, was telling a friend, who urged her to get medical help. Her second, was telling the school GP what she genuinely believed the problem to be — anxiety, low self-worth, fear of the future — until she mentioned the voice, at which point he became suddenly, intently interested. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, hospitalised, and medicated. As a broken and haunted person she began her journey. The healers and fellow voice-hearers, her mother, and the doctor who briefly told her recovery was possible, helped save her — but what they gave her most was the empowerment to save herself. Crucially, they helped her understand something she'd always suspected: that her voices were a meaningful response to traumatic events, not her enemies, but a source of insight into emotional problems she could work through.

Quite fittingly, John O'Donohue — the Celtic poet, philosopher, author, and priest — speaks of the power of befriending the negative within you. Why is this true? Because when you shine a light on something, it is no longer so dark and unknown.

The common thread in all these stories is a different approach: becoming one with the struggle rather than fighting to change it. Learning from it.

"What are you talking about, Gemma? I thought we were talking about good habits, and now you're saying to become one with the battles inside us? That doesn't sound like a good habit at all."

I love it when the confusion sets in — because that's exactly where transformation happens.

My last story is about David Chethlahe Paladin — who endured horrors most of us can't imagine.

David Chethlahe Paladin, a shaman, has a beautiful and inspiring story, part of which I'll share here, because it really resonates with the points I'm trying to make. David was born on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. As a child, he stayed with missionaries and attended school, where he rebelled and felt out of place in the "white man's world." He and his cousin ran away and went hitchhiking. Eventually they landed on a ship, where they befriended a German man named Ted. The three spent time together thoroughly enjoying life, with David drawing everything he saw. As WWII began, the CIA recognised how David's artistic talent and Indigenous heritage could be useful, and he was recruited — David assumed it would mean going back to sea, that he enjoyed so much, but it wasn't to be, he was posted in Europe. Years later, David became a prisoner of war, and his path crossed with Ted again — who spared his life from the death chambers. At fifteen and a half, he was captured in Germany along with roughly 700 Jewish prisoners and witnessed and endured immense suffering and torture. Suffering from gangrene, he was moved to a prison infirmary, where — in and out of consciousness — an officer packed maggots into his open wounds and forced raw chicken entrails down his throat, memories that would traumatise him for years. After the war, he carried intense hatred for that officer, and he wore braces on his legs. During the Nuremberg war crimes trials in 1945, David was given the chance to testify against the officer. During the hearing, another witness explained that the officer's actions had actually saved David's life. The impact of the words broke David, as he had had such bitterness for this man, he cried immensely and released all the pain he was holding onto. He vowed to himself never to judge what he did not understand. When he let go of his torturous past, he regained the use of his legs.

In Summary

When we make positive changes in our life, we expect everything from that point on to be positive. Because we're in a positive state of mind, we want everything around us to reflect that back, as if to encourage us. But the reality is, when too much "good" happens, we don't actually learn. We need a healthy balance of good and bad to carry us successfully through change and adaptation. This is the first thing we need to surrender to — allowing whatever comes, to come, and accepting it. When we do, we develop what I call a weathering system that walks with us on the journey: sunny days, rainy days, thunderous days, and more, supporting us with their symbolic value. Most of us love the long warm days of summer — and when other kinds of days arrive, we rebel, as if to say, "No, I want sun," and we let that resistance hold us back. When we surrender to all weather, as it comes, and let it support us, many things start to happen in our life. This is when the change happens. We grow and learn in so many ways we could never have imagined for ourselves. The hardest first step is to surrender — to let go, stop trying to control everything, and allow what is needed to surface. When it comes, we face it, and then it passes.

When we're doing this work, the habit, health issue, or behaviour we wanted to change simply disappears. You surrender to the problem, stop focusing on it, and start focusing on where you are going. That's what I mean: one day you suddenly realise things are different. You are different, and life is different.

So next time it feels like nothing is changing — that's not evidence you're failing. It's evidence you're mid-spring, not mid-summer. Stay with it.