Can people really change? As a therapist, it’s a question I hear often. Especially when we find ourselves stuck in unhealthy patterns, particularly in relationships. If you’ve experienced the frustration of repeating the same patterns, you are not alone.
- Why am I only attracted to partners who are unavailable?
- Why do I try to get close to people and then sabotage relationships when they get serious?
- Why does my partner push me away in the same predictable ways every time I try to tell them how I feel?
- Why does it scare me to leave this relationship even though I know it’s not right for me?
Can People Really Change?
So, is real, transformative change possible? Can someone really change? Are people capable of change? Can we shift patterns in ourselves that have always been there?
As a therapist, I am here to tell you the answer is yes. If that were not true, therapists, life coaches, and even many spiritual paths would not exist. I’ve worked with countless clients on attachment history and behavior shifts. I’ve seen firsthand how change is not only possible but transformative when approached with humility and motivation.
The bigger question is how. How can people change? What kind of work can we do to create change that actually lasts and transforms our relationships?
In this article, we’ll explore the key factors that support lasting transformation, particularly in relationships and your own mental health journey.
But first, before we dive into the key factors for lasting change, we must start with an understanding of how problematic problems form in the first place.
Problematic Relational Patterns
Where Do Relationship Problems Come From?
Most typically, undesired patterns at their core are protective mechanisms that no longer serve the goals of the individual or the relationship.
These patterns are often unconscious and historically developed. They are reactions that are misguided in their direction at the people in front of us. They are your nervous system’s attempt at protecting us, applied in a relevant context.
For example, maybe I have learned that sharing emotions is unsafe or that mine are too much and I am overwhelmed by them. I might hyperactivate to get a partner’s attention and have them come toward me, only to mistrust that their towards move is safe (pursuer or anxious dynamic).
Contrastingly, maybe if I learned that my emotions are not valid or my worth is not enough. I may attempt to shut my emotions down, or project and blame them out onto others, out of fear that my partner will not want to see me when I need them (withdrawer or avoidant dynamic).
The key is that the patterns were once helpful and adaptive when we learned them. Typically, these patterns are learned very young when children are helpless. At that time, we need to form strategies to stay connected to caregivers and stay alive.
Yet, the protections are powerful because the threat of rejection or abandonment are survival signals for connecting creatures like humans.
Why Do We Get Stuck in Patterns?
If problems are created by our mind and nervous system’s ineffective attempt to keep us safe, they are perpetuated by our lack of consciousness around them.
Because all of these mechanisms are automatic and occur outside of our conscious minds, it can be very difficult to identify when one of these patterns is present.
The problem will persist until we can bring those patterns into consciousness and examine them against our relational learnings from our lifetime.
How Do People Change?
Do people really change? Is change possible?
Yes, people can change. Let’s talk about the key factors of changing behaviors and relationship patterns for when you are looking to determine can people really change.
1- Motivation for Change
The first piece of lasting change is having the internal motivation and drive to putting in the work.
Change is hard. Anytime we move into a difficult under-taking, it’s important to align with your “why”. Why is change important? How are the patterns you are looking to shift impacting your life? What makes putting in this work worth it?
Then, when the work sets in and you instinctively want to run away or shut it all down, you take a deep breath and come back to your “why”.
2- Willingness to See Patterns
If problems are perpetuated in the unconscious, change occurs in the conscious, present, mindful, intentional way of being.
Insight is crucial to change, as it requires effort to become aware and become willing to break from reactive patterns. If you are not honest with yourself about the trends that repeat in your relationships, shifting them will not be possible.
Patterns can be difficult to see within oneself. Start by creating a journaling practice where you notice themes like:
- Do relationships typically end after a certain amount of time? A certain type of event?
- Are there trends in the behaviors in partners you are attracted to?
- Do those original attractions become pain points later down the road?
- Do you avoid closeness, as much as you know you crave it?
Again, we are looking for themes. While these patterns can be difficult to note in yourself, a relational therapist can help you to explore which themes may be relevant to your healing journey.
3- Self-Compassion
One thing I know for sure: lasting change cannot be shamed out of us.
When we try to fight off patterns or self-shame, our unconscious only detects more fear and unsafety and tries to hold on to them tighter. Remember, these patterns were born to be protective mechanisms.
Instead, get curious about how these patterns formed. How did they once keep you safe, when you were young and unable to keep yourself safe in another way? How can you make sense of the ways it’s shown up in your life, based on your childhood, your family, and your earliest intimate relationships?
Do change the behavior, you have to first acknowledge why it’s happening in the first place.
When you can validate yourself and hold yourself in compassion, your nervous system will relax and be more open to shifts.
4- Take the Risk– Tolerance of Discomfort
Step 4 is key. In order to change, we must risk stepping into the unknown. The place we have always avoided because we have always assumed we were not safe there.
While our projections (also known as protections) serve as an attempt to avoid pain, we do not actually heal by turning away from connection. Instead, we have to stop ourselves from engaging in the behavior that normally keeps us safe from connecting, feeling, being- anything that feels like a risk.
We have to unlearn the ways we have learned to defend ourselves and keep ourselves safe in all of the areas of our relational lives.
Here are just a few examples of ways that we try to protect ourselves that end up creating unhelpful patterns. Again, we are looking at the function of these behaviors, rather than claiming anything on this list is inherently good or bad.
- Numb emotions with substances, food, compulsive scrolling, sex, etc.
- Binging, purging, restricting
- Shutting down
- Anxiously pursuing others and demanding attention to validate self-worth
- Overanalyzing, focusing on logic
- Avoiding difficult conversations
Instead of meeting the edge of discomfort and escaping through the ways above, we instead must stay at the edge and tolerate the pain.
5- Creating a New Sense of Safety
Can people really change?
Once you begin taking the risk of tolerating the pain, your mind and nervous system will make the neural connections that we are safe in the present moments we are in. We are no longer in the past where we needed the protective mechanisms.
The concept of neuroplasticity means that your brain is always taking in new information and is open to changing and rewiring.
We are not trying to turn our nervous system off completely- it serves an incredibly crucial evolutionary and adaptive function.
Instead, we work to bring the nervous system into the present moment so that we can move to protection when we really need it, and stay in discomfort when we can tolerate it.
When your mind and body are aligned in the present moment, you can finally release patterns that no longer serve your current relationships and mental wellness.
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