Many people notice that they want to change — and yet keep arriving at the same points.

They resolve to feel less anxious.
They wish to feel less sad.
To react differently than before.

And at the same time, something else often becomes apparent:
the stronger the attempt to get rid of certain feelings, the more persistent they tend to become.

At first glance, the wish for change seems reasonable.
And yet it often carries a particular attitude:

That things should not be the way they are.

This gives rise to an inner movement that often goes unnoticed: one part registers what is there — anxiety, sadness, tension.
Another part turns against it and tries to change or put an end to the experience.

At that point, it is no longer only about the feeling itself,
but about the way it is being met.

Sadness is not simply experienced as sadness,
but as something that should disappear as quickly as possible.
Anxiety is not only felt,
but at the same time judged and pushed away.

In that moment, an inner conflict arises.

It is not only the feeling that is present, but also the attempt not to let it be there.
And this often intensifies the experience.

Trying not to feel something does not make it disappear.
It keeps the feeling in the foreground.

What is being rejected in the process is a part of one’s own experience.

When this part is met with resistance, additional pressure arises.
And this pressure, in turn, tends to intensify the feeling.

What might happen if, for a moment, something different were tried?

If what arises did not have to be changed immediately.
If sadness were allowed to be there.
If anxiety were allowed to be there.
If even unpleasant feelings were first simply seen for what they are — not pleasant, perhaps even painful, but not wrong.

This does not mean that change or development should not take place.
Change is happening all the time.
The question is rather what gives rise to it.

Whether it comes from the attempt to eliminate something within oneself, or from a more precise awareness of what is already there.

Because sometimes what feels stuck
does not lie in the feeling itself,
but in the way it is being related to.