Why People Don't Change: The Hidden Dilemmas of Loyalty and Pain

Change is often spoken about as if it were a simple decision — a matter of willpower, clarity, or "wanting it enough." Yet anyone who has truly tried to transform some deep-seated part of themselves knows this: real change is not a mere act of choice, but a profound confrontation with impossible dilemmas of loyalty, attachment, and hidden pain.

We often imagine that people stay stuck out of stubbornness, laziness, or resistance. But more often, what holds someone back is a fierce loyalty to the very parts of themselves that once kept them alive. These are the patterns, identities, and defences that, at one point, were not optional — they were necessary.

A child who had to become silent to survive a chaotic household may carry that silence into adulthood, not because they "choose" to be disconnected, but because that silence became synonymous with safety, belonging, and love.
The overachiever who cannot rest is still serving a primal contract: "If I perform well enough, I will be loved."
The one who mistrusts intimacy is guarding a wound where trust once shattered them.

To abandon these parts is no small thing. It feels like betrayal.
It feels like letting down the younger self who endured unbearable circumstances by being exactly this way.

And so beneath the surface of resistance, there is often an impossible question:

• "If I change, who will protect me?"

• "If I change, do I betray the part of me that suffered?"

• "If I change, will I lose the love that required me to be this way?"

This is not laziness. It is grief. It is the heartbreak of outgrowing an identity that once saved you. It is the confrontation with the unbearable pain buried deep within the psyche — the pain of abandonment, of not being loved as you were, the pain of adapting in ways that cost you parts of your soul.

Change demands not just courage, but reverence for the parts of us that shaped our survival — to bow to who we had to be, while allowing ourselves to become someone new.

When someone cannot change, it is not because they are weak. It is because the change required would mean facing the raw, unhealed sorrows that live beneath their everyday self — and doing so might destroy them.

The Pain of Severance: Why We Must Sometimes Do the "Unforgivable"

In my own life, I was fiercely attached to the version of myself who could keep a loving mother.
To others, it may have looked selfish, even harsh — the way I resisted, the way I fought or withdrew.
But underneath was a pain I could barely name: I could not bear the agony of abandoning her.
To let go of her — even psychically — felt like committing a crime against the very fabric of the universe.

She was the last thread to the family I had already left behind — and with her, I was forced to release not only a mother, but an entire old sense of self.

The rupture felt absolute — a fracture through the centre of my being.
Like a porcelain vessel dropped and broken by invisible hands, the self I had constructed could no longer contain me.
And yet in this fracture, something more honest began to emerge.
Like the ancient art of kintsugi, where broken pottery is mended with gold, this breaking marked the beginning of a deeper beauty — new life shimmering through the cracks.

Real healing demanded that I sever the psychic bond that told me my survival depended on her being different, or on me sacrificing my truth to preserve the dream of her love.
It asked me to release the ancient child-contract: "If I stay small enough, loyal enough, good enough, maybe she will love me the way I needed."

This severance is not about hatred. It is an act of liberation — a reclaiming of the self lost to old loyalties.

Sometimes, the only way to love fully is to leave the places — and the people — where our spirit was once broken.

To the psyche, especially the child within, it can feel like death.
It can feel like treachery.
It can feel like the gravest betrayal imaginable — a crime against the invisible threads that once held your world together.

But paradoxically, this inner detachment opens the true doorway to forgiveness.

When we sever from needing someone to be different we free ourselves to see them — and ourselves — with clearer eyes.

Forgiveness is not the denial of harm. We offer forgiveness not as performance or duty, but as a natural flowering of the soul that has returned to itself.

The Invisible Weight: Carrying Our Parents on Our Backs

Long after we leave our childhood homes, many of us continue to carry our parents on our backs — their griefs, their unmet needs, their expectations.

This burden is so woven into our bones that it feels like part of our identity.
To set it down feels not just difficult — it feels guilty, even monstrous.
As though stepping into full aliveness betrays those who could never do the same.

Society rewards quiet endurance and punishes those who dare to claim a life not shaped by ancestral sorrow.

In truth, disentangling ourselves from our parents’ expectations is a hidden, often socially unacceptable act.
There are no ceremonies for it, no recognition, no understanding from those who still believe that loyalty means sacrifice.

But the burden was never ours to carry.
We honour our parents not by fulfilling their stories, but by becoming the fullest expression of our own soul.

In laying down this ancient weight, we do not abandon them; we free them too — from the illusion that we could ever fix what was never ours to mend.

Leaving Our Parents Behind

Leaving our parents behind is not cruelty — it is profound spiritual necessity.
It is the realisation that we cannot sacrifice our lives upon the altar of their expectations.

Psychically, emotionally, and sometimes physically, we must make the choice to walk forward without dragging the past behind us.
Departure carries unbearable guilt: seeming ungrateful, surviving, choosing life over sorrow.

It is an invisible grief few recognise.

And yet, as we walk onward — trembling, heartbroken — a different kind of love emerges.

Leaving does not mean erasing or ceasing to care.
It means choosing to belong, first and foremost, to the truth of our own souls.

Only in this freedom can we finally love them — and ourselves — in the only way that is real.

How Can We Soften Toward Others in Their Resistance?

We can remember that behind every stubbornness is a story.
Behind every avoidance is an invisible wound.
Behind every clinging to the old is a deep devotion to a younger self who needed protection.

When we meet resistance — whether in ourselves or another — we can meet it not with force or frustration, but with gentleness and curiosity.

Compassion does not mean abandoning boundaries or enabling harm.
It means seeing the aching heart beneath the armour — the unbearable pain still waiting for permission to be held.

In softening, we create a space where change can be born not through shame, but through love.
And perhaps that is the only soil where true transformation has ever grown.

May the fractures you carry be mended in gold.

About Me

I’m Solara, a holistic coach, shaman, and healer offering in person & online 1:1 and group sessions, including energy healing, coaching & breathwork. Contact me for a free taster session!
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