Change Can Be Uncomfortable (Even When It’s Good)

There is something about this time of year that I particularly love,

The days begin to stretch a little longer.

The light shifts. There are small signs — almost easy to miss — that things are changing. Buds forming. Air softening, the quiet promise of spring.

And yet, if you’ve ever really paid attention to nature, you’ll know this: growth doesn’t arrive fully formed.

It pushes through slowly. Unevenly.

Sometimes awkwardly, and in many ways, change in our own lives is no different

Why Growth Can Feel So Unsettling

We often imagine change — especially positive change — as something that should feel good.

Relief. Clarity. Confidence.

But in therapy, and in life, growth often feels quite different.

It can feel:

• uncertain

• uncomfortable

• exposing

• even a little destabilising

This is because change asks something of us.

It asks us to move away from what is familiar — even if what is familiar isn’t working.

Our minds and bodies are wired for safety, and “familiar” often feels safer than “new,” even when the new is healthier.

So when things begin to shift — new boundaries, new ways of responding, new awareness — it can feel like the ground is moving slightly beneath us.

That doesn’t mean something is wrong instead, it often means something is changing.

Letting Go of Who You’ve Had to Be

Growth isn’t just about adding something new it most often involves letting go.

Letting go of roles you’ve held:

• the one who keeps the peace

• the one who always says yes

• the one who doesn’t need anything

• the one who holds everything together

These ways of being didn’t appear by accident. They were most likely often shaped by your earliest experiences, your relationships, your environment. At some point, they made sense. They may even have protected you.

But as life shifts, those roles can begin to feel restrictive.

And loosening them can feel… strange.

You might notice:

• discomfort when you say no

• guilt when you prioritise yourself

• uncertainty about how to respond differently

• a sense of “who am I, if not this?”

This is not regression it is a process of re organisation

The In-Between Space

There is a stage in change that often goes unspoken.

The in-between.

You’re no longer who you were. But you don’t quite feel like who you’re becoming yet.

Old patterns don’t fit in the same way and newly formed ones don’t feel natural yet.

It can feel like:

• wobbliness

• self-doubt

• second-guessing

• emotional sensitivity

In therapy, this is often where the real work happens.

It’s not always comfortable. It doesn’t always feel like progress. But it’s a deeply important part of change — the space where awareness is growing, even if certainty hasn’t caught up yet.

If winter is about stillness, and summer is about fullness, this stage is something like early spring.

Uncertain. Emerging. Not quite settled.

Spring as a Reminder

Spring doesn’t rush.

It doesn’t force everything into bloom overnight. It unfolds gradually, responding to light, warmth, time. Some days still feel cold. Some growth is barely visible. Some things take longer than others.

And yet, something is happening beneath the surface.

Roots are strengthening. Shoots are forming. Life is reorganising itself in preparation for what comes next.

There’s something in that which mirrors our own internal process.

Change doesn’t need to be dramatic to be real. Growth doesn’t need to feel comfortable to be meaningful.

A Gentle Reflection

If you are in a period of change — whether through therapy or simply through life — and it feels more uncomfortable than you expected, you are not alone.

Growth can feel like uncertainty before it feels like confidence, it can feel like questioning before it feels like clarity and like discomfort before it feels like ease.

And that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.

It may simply mean that something in you is shifting — making space for something new, even if you can’t quite see it yet.

Like spring, change has its own pace.

You don’t have to rush it.