Understanding Surface vs. Deep Change

There are two types of change.

The first type is a surface level change. It’s an outward change like changing your physical appearances, your relationships, or living environments. Though such change might bring you temporary satisfaction as it seems to meet your needs to some extent, it doesn’t usually have a long-lasting affect. This is because it rarely fills the real emptiness deep within you.

The second type is a deep level change. It requires you to look inward and reset what you believe and even who are you as a person.

How, this is a much more painful experience as it forces us to question everything we know and rebuild our belief system and identity on the unconscious level. It can feel like your whole world is shaking, and every part of your being wants to resist. Because to your nervous system this type of change is equivalent to uncertainty and real danger.

However, if you are on this path of change, willingly, or unwillingly, I just want to let you know that it’s ok. It’s ok to feel the pain and struggle, to feel lost, to be terrified, to want to cry or scream at times. Because you are literately letting go of part of yourself, like a snake shedding its skin, leaving you exposed, naked, fully vulnerable to unknown.

And every time you make some progress, the fear grows even stronger pulling you back to where you started.

But here is the secret.

Every time you resist the urge to retreat and instead confront your fear, the new you arises as your old self dissolves itself, like the Phoenix reborn from the ashes.

So, if you keep going again and again, sure enough, one day, someday, you will get to a new baseline. And when you finally cross that river of change, you will feel a real sense of authenticity and power, because you have not only shaped yourself into a stronger person, but more importantly reclaimed a part of your true self.