There is a strange part of change that we don’t talk about enough.
Sometimes, doing the thing you know is right for you doesn’t feel right at all. You finally say no and spend the rest of the evening feeling guilty.
You ask someone for help and immediately wish you’d done it yourself. You rest before everything is finished and can’t quite shake the feeling that you should be doing something. Or you make a decision based on what you want and suddenly wonder whether you’re being selfish.
We imagine that choosing differently will feel liberating. Sometimes it does. But sometimes the first feeling isn’t freedom. It’s discomfort.
And when we’ve spent years believing our feelings are telling us whether we’re making the right decision, that discomfort can be incredibly confusing.
‘Why does it feel so wrong, if this choice is right for me?’
We’ve Been Talking About The Rules
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been having a conversation.
First, I asked you to consider the invisible rules you’ve been living by. Then we explored why recognising those rules doesn’t mean we’ll immediately stop living by them.
Awareness gives us choice, but choice asks us to do something awareness doesn’t. It asks us to behave differently.
Recognising that you’ve spent years people-pleasing is one thing. Saying no to someone you love is another.
Knowing you don’t need to prove your worth through productivity is one thing. Closing the laptop while there is still work to do is another.
Understanding that you’re allowed to have needs is one thing. Actually expressing them is another.
There is a space between understanding something and becoming comfortable living it. And I think many of us mistake that space for failure.
Familiar Doesn’t Always Mean Right
When we’ve behaved in a certain way for long enough, we come to know what to expect from it.
Keep everybody happy and conflict is less likely. Work harder and you can reassure yourself you’ve done enough. Stay quiet and nobody can accuse you of being difficult. Do everything yourself and you don’t have to experience the vulnerability of depending on somebody else.
These responses become familiar. So when we begin behaving differently, we’re not only changing a behaviour, we’re disrupting an expectation.
The guilt after setting the boundary. The anxiety after saying no. The restlessness when you stop. The urge to explain yourself. We can interpret those feelings as evidence:
I shouldn’t have done that.
This isn’t who I am.
I’ve made the wrong decision.
But discomfort doesn’t always mean something is wrong. Sometimes it simply means something is unfamiliar and learning to tell the difference is what truly matters.
Guilt Doesn’t Always Mean You’ve Done Something Wrong
Guilt is a particularly interesting example. We’re often taught to treat guilt as evidence of wrongdoing. And sometimes it is. If we’ve hurt someone or acted against our values, guilt can tell us something important. But guilt can also appear when we stop behaving in the way other people have become accustomed to.
If you’ve always been available, becoming less available may feel selfish. If you’ve always said yes, saying no can feel unkind. If you’ve spent years taking responsibility for everybody else’s feelings, allowing someone to be disappointed can feel almost unbearable.
The feeling is real. But that doesn’t automatically make the story attached to it true.
You can feel guilty and still have made a healthy decision. You can feel uncomfortable and still be acting in alignment with what matters to you. You can disappoint someone and still love them. You can choose yourself without making somebody else wrong.
Sometimes the work isn’t getting rid of the uncomfortable feeling, it’s learning not to immediately obey it.
The Old Choice Often Feels Easier
Imagine you’ve finally set a boundary. For a few hours, you sit with the discomfort. Then you receive a message. They’re disappointed.
Immediately, the old solution presents itself; explain, apologise, soften the boundary and whatever you do, make it ok.
And the moment you do, you feel relief. There. That’s better. But was the boundary wrong? Or did returning to the familiar simply remove the discomfort of doing something new?
I think this is one of the places where real change happens. Not in the dramatic declaration that you’re going to live differently, but in the ordinary moment when the old way offers you immediate relief… and you allow yourself to pause before returning to it.
Choosing Differently Can Change Your Relationships
There is another part of becoming that deserves more honesty.
When you change the way you participate in your life, the people around you experience that change too.
The woman who always says yes begins saying no. The woman who solves everything stops immediately stepping in. The woman who avoids difficult conversations starts speaking honestly. The woman who makes herself smaller becomes more visible.
Some people will welcome it, some will adjust and some may simply not like it at all. Because the old version of you wasn’t only familiar to you, she was familiar to everyone else too.
That doesn’t mean you stop growing. Nor does it mean every uncomfortable relationship needs to be left behind. It simply means other people may need time to meet the version of you who is emerging.
And sometimes, they may choose not to.
You Don’t Need To Become Fearless
I think personal development has sold us a slightly unrealistic version of change.
We imagine the confident woman sets the boundary without shaking. Starts the business without worrying. Changes direction without questioning herself. Speaks honestly without caring what anybody thinks.
I’m not convinced that’s how courage usually looks.
Courage can look like your voice shaking while you say what you need to say. It can look like feeling guilty and not immediately changing your answer. It can look like doubting yourself and still giving the new choice enough time to breathe.
You don’t need to wait until the new choice feels completely comfortable. Often comfort comes after we’ve shown ourselves, repeatedly, that a different way of living is possible.
The Question Is No Longer Just ‘How Do I Feel?’
Feelings matter. But they aren’t always instructions.
So when a new choice feels wrong, there may be another question worth asking. Not simply, ‘how does this feel?’, but, ‘why does this feel uncomfortable?’
Is this choice actually against my values? Have I hurt someone in a way I need to repair? Is something genuinely telling me to reconsider? Or am I experiencing the discomfort of behaving differently from the woman I’ve learnt to be?
Those questions require something deeper than certainty. They require self-trust.
Not the kind of self-trust that always knows the answer. The kind that is willing to stay in conversation with itself long enough to find one.
What If This Is What Becoming Feels Like?
We talk about becoming as though we’ll recognise the new version of ourselves immediately. As though she’ll arrive feeling natural. Certain. Confident. Like home.
But becoming can feel unfamiliar before it feels like us. We’re not only stepping towards something new, we’re loosening our grip on ways of living we’ve practised for years.
Of course there will be moments when we question ourselves. Of course an old pattern will occasionally feel easier. That doesn’t mean we’re going backwards, it means we’re learning.
So instead of asking, ‘how do I make this new choice feel comfortable immediately?’ What if we asked, ‘can I give myself enough time to discover what this choice feels like when it is no longer new?’
Because one day, the boundary that once filled you with guilt may simply feel honest. The rest that once made you anxious may feel necessary. Receiving help may stop feeling like weakness. Saying what you need may stop requiring an apology. Choosing yourself may stop feeling selfish. Not because somebody finally gave you permission but because you stopped requiring it.
At first, choosing differently can feel like you’re betraying the woman you’ve always been. Until, slowly, you realise something.
You weren’t betraying her. You were showing her that she had another choice. And I think that’s what freedom can begin to feel like. Not the absence of discomfort. Not even absolute certainty, but the growing realisation that unfamiliar doesn’t automatically mean wrong.
Sometimes, it’s simply somewhere you haven’t lived before.
With warmth,
Becky
Founder & Editor, Becoming Her