On Change & Resistance

It’s scary, I know. The thought of the world passing us by, becoming a reflection in the rearview mirror, wondering when it all went down. There is something deeply unsettling about that realization. It does not arrive loudly or all at once. It creeps in quietly, almost imperceptibly, until one day you look around and feel slightly out of place in a world that once felt familiar.

So we resist the change. We counter with philosophies, with ethics, with firmly held beliefs about how things should be. We search for language that justifies our discomfort, for ideas that restore a sense of order. Anything that helps us make sense of it. Beneath it all, there is a bodily response that cannot be reasoned away. That sense of impending doom settles in the body, gripping the stomach, tightening the chest, signaling that something is shifting beyond our control.

Why is this? How can it be? We ask ourselves as we scramble to regain some sense of stability. We want to locate the moment where things went wrong, as if identifying it might allow us to reverse it. At its core, it is not just confusion. It is fear.

Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Throw it all away, wishing you could just go back home.

There is a longing embedded in that wish. Not necessarily for a physical place, but for a time when things felt coherent, when the world made sense, when our place within it felt secure. Home becomes symbolic of certainty, of belonging, of clarity. And when that begins to slip, our first instinct is to hold on tighter.

But resistance has its limits.

At some point, something shifts. It is not a dramatic breakthrough or a sudden moment of clarity. It is more subtle than that. A loosening. A quiet recognition that the energy it takes to resist what is happening can no longer be sustained. We do not fully accept it, not really, but we begin to release our grip.

We move forward anyway. Not because we are ready, but because time does not pause for our hesitation. We continue trying to make sense of what is, while still longing for what was. This creates a kind of internal dissonance, a feeling of being caught between two worlds. One that is no longer accessible, and one that has not yet fully taken shape.

Nostalgia creeps in during this space. We revisit memories, moments that once felt ordinary, now elevated in hindsight. We look back, wishing we had known when the good times were the good times. There is a quiet regret in that realization. Not because those moments were lost, but because we did not recognize their significance while we were living them.

And yet, even with this awareness, we often remain stuck. Not fully present in what is unfolding, and not able to return to what has already passed. Suspended somewhere in between.

Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Throw it all away, wishing you could just go back home.

But the truth is, what was will never be again, and what will be has yet to occur. This is a difficult reality to accept, not because it is complex, but because it requires us to let go of control over both the past and the future. The past cannot be reclaimed, and the future cannot be fully predicted.

All we can really do is live in the now.

This is easier said than done. The present moment is not always comfortable. It is often filled with uncertainty, ambiguity, and tension. It asks us to exist without clear resolution, without the reassurance of certainty. It places us in the middle.

In the middle. In the tension of opposites. Neither here nor there. Not who we once were, and not yet who we are becoming.

This is where the work is.

Not in holding on to the past in an attempt to preserve what has already changed. Not in escaping into the future in hopes that something will eventually resolve itself. Both are forms of avoidance, subtle ways of distancing ourselves from the discomfort of the present moment.

The work is in staying.

In learning how to exist within that tension without immediately trying to resolve it. In allowing both realities to coexist. The memory of what was, and the possibility of what could be. Rather than choosing one over the other, we are invited to hold both.

This is where the third way begins to emerge.

Not as a compromise, and not as an escape, but as something new entirely. A path that honors what was without being bound by it, and makes space for what will be without fearing it. It is not something that can be forced or rushed. It unfolds gradually as we remain present within the tension, allowing a new orientation to take shape.

That is where we find our footing. Not in certainty, but in presence. Not in control, but in awareness.

From there, we begin to move forward. Not with complete clarity, but with enough trust to take the next step. And then the next.

This is where growth happens. This is where transformation begins.

This is where we thrive, not by escaping the tension, but by learning to live within it.

Inside the transcendent function.