Micro-Lesson: Why Is Change So Scary?

Earlier this week, I watched a young boy freeze at the end of a diving board, his toes curled over the edge as if gripping the last piece of certainty he had. He’d been laughing in the water just minutes before, but the height of that board changed the whole conversation inside his body. He kept glancing toward his mother, hoping her smile could quiet whatever storm was gathering in his chest.

If you looked closely, you could see the tug-of-war. His shoulders leaned forward as if ready to leap, but the rest of him stayed rooted, unwilling to release the only ground he trusted. His mother didn’t push or hurry him; she simply held out her voice like a soft rope, something he could grab when he felt ready.

Most of us underestimate how familiar this moment is in adulthood. The setting changes, but the inner hesitation feels the same — the tightening in the stomach, the sudden flood of what-ifs, the quiet hope that someone will tell us it’s going to be okay. Change has a way of making even confident people feel small for a moment.

From a Neurospiritualist perspective, that smallness has intelligence behind it. Your neural system is built to protect you from the unpredictable; it scans for patterns, safety, and anything that resembles home. Meanwhile, your spiritual system carries the memory of expansion — the pull toward growth, meaning, and the next version of yourself trying to emerge. When those two systems fall out of rhythm, fear rises to fill the gap.

But when they begin listening to each other again, something shifts. The head softens its grip, the heart steadies its pace, and a small strand of harmony begins to stretch between them. If that harmony holds for even a breath, coherence has a chance to rise — the state where Human Intelligence and Sacred Intelligence meet and move as one.

At its core, the fear of change is less about the change itself and more about the distance between who we have been and who we are becoming. Fear grows in that space when the head and heart lose their way to each other.

So the next time you find yourself hesitating at your own edge, take a moment to notice which part of you is trying to protect you and which part is trying to guide you. Both voices are yours. Both are necessary. And both are longing to move toward each other again.

And when they do — even slightly — the jump becomes possible, not because the fear disappears, but because you are no longer facing it divided.

Blessed Harmony.