Why Are So Many of Us Fearful of Change While Others Embrace It?

This article was updated on September 19, 2026.

Why Are So Many of Us Fearful of Change While Others Embrace It?

While some people embrace transitions wholeheartedly, the vast majority of us naturally resist change—especially when it pushes us out of our comfort zone. As a New York City psychotherapist in private practice, I frequently see clients respond to making life shifts with a mixture of anxious anticipation, fear, and ambivalence.

Personal growth is rarely a straight line. Like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, shedding old defense mechanisms requires time, vulnerability, and a safe environment.

Objectively, it might seem confusing that voluntary therapy clients resist the very transformations they are paying to achieve. Psychologically, however, this resistance makes perfect sense.

Why Is Change So Hard for Most of Us?

When we look beneath the surface, what we actually dislike is the lack of control and the profound uncertainty that accompanies a transition.

While we welcome positive changes we choose—like a much-anticipated vacation, falling in love, or earning a raise—we instinctively resist involuntary changes imposed upon us.

Examples of Involuntary Change:

• An unexpected life event like the death of a loved one
• A sudden health concern or medical diagnosis
• The painful ending of a romantic relationship
• A sudden workplace restructuring or a layout shift
• An unexpected financial loss or budget crisis

Under these involuntary circumstances, grief, pain, and loss can make the world feel deeply confusing and threatening.

Why Do We Have Mixed Feelings About Changes We Want?

The human brain naturally prioritizes predictability and comfort over the discomfort of personal growth. Even when a change is highly desired, the status quo represents a familiar survival strategy that has kept us safe. As the old saying goes, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't."

In psychotherapy, this internal tug-of-war is understood through two core clinical frameworks:

1. The Approach-Avoidance Conflict

This psychological phenomenon means we are simultaneously drawn to the benefits of a better life while being repelled by the fear and effort required to change.

2. Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Protector Parts

According to IFS Therapy (Internal Family Systems), our psyche contains defense mechanisms known as "protector parts." These parts resist change because they originally stepped up to protect a wounded, traumatized part of us during childhood.

For example, if you learned to become emotionally numb to survive a dysfunctional family, that defense mechanism protected you from overwhelming pain. However, using that same emotional numbness ("zoning out") as an adult when your partner is sharing their frustration is no longer adaptive. While you want to be a good partner, letting go of that safety mechanism feels incredibly risky to your nervous system.

Similarly, when resolving trauma, your logical mind knows life will improve without the psychological burden, but processing those buried emotions can trigger an intense urge to abandon the effort.

How Can the Change Process Be Easier to Manage?

As a trauma therapist, I cannot eliminate the emotional pain of growth, but I can help you process it in manageable waves. Utilizing specialized techniques—such as Somatic Experiencing and pendulation—allows us to safely expand your comfort zone.

You can make the transition more manageable by practicing these steps:

• Ditch all-or-nothing thinking: Shift out of a binary mindset to avoid disappointment when difficult habits don't change overnight.
• Adopt non-judgmental curiosity: View your fear as data to explore rather than a personal failure.
• Acknowledge protective habits: Recognize that your old, maladaptive defense mechanisms once kept you safe.
• Separate fear from action: Learn to tolerate the physical sensation of fear while taking small outward steps.
• Expect non-linear progress: Anticipate natural ups and downs rather than expecting a straight line forward.
• Identify what is controllable: Anchor your focus entirely on what you can influence right now.
• Remember prior resilience: Recall times you successfully navigated unexpected life shifts in the past.
• Challenge catastrophic thinking: Evaluate whether your fears are realistic or just worst-case scenarios.
• Process long-term regret: Forgive yourself for waiting until now so guilt doesn't stall your momentum.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Why do I want to change but find myself resisting it?

This is known as the approach-avoidance conflict. Your brain naturally values predictability and safe familiarity, causing your nervous system to resist growth even when you logically want to improve your life.

How does trauma therapy help with a fear of change?

Trauma therapies like EMDR, IFS, and Somatic Experiencing help identify the protective parts of your psyche that are stuck in the past. By processing old wounds, your nervous system learns that it is safe to embrace the present.

Navigate Life Transitions with Professional Support

Change is rarely easy, but choosing a therapist who makes you feel safe is the first step toward a new experience of security. As an experienced NYC psychotherapist, I provide a compassionate space to help you step out of survival mode and into meaningful growth.

📞 Contact Josephine Ferraro, LCSW

• Specialties: Psychodynamic Therapy, Trauma Therapy, Hypnotherapy, EMDR, AEDP, IFS/Parts Work, EFT Couples Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, and Sex Therapy
• Website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist
• Location: Greenwich Village, New York City (10011) and Telehealth
• Phone: (917) 742-2624 (Business hours)
• Email: josephineferraro@iCloud.com
• Next Step: Reach out today for a free 15 minute phone call to discuss your goals.

Overcoming Your Fear of Change

Making a change can be challenging, especially when change involves major life transitions. When you think about making a change, you might go back and forth, not knowing what to do.  But it's not unusual to have mixed feelings about making a transition, even when you know logically that it would be for the best.

Overcoming Fear of Change

What Does Fear of Change Look Like?

For instance, if we know that you have outgrown your current job and you need a change, you can find painful to face this. 

You might procrastinate taking the necessary steps--whether it involves going for additional training or education or starting a job search, because you might fear the unknown and tell yourself:

• "What will happen if I leave my secure but boring job?"

• "What if it turns out to be a bad decision?"

• "What if I don't succeed?"

And on and on until you're paralyzed into inaction.

Ultimately, you might decide to stay at your job for a variety of reasons, but you'll be making an active decision instead of getting stuck in indecision (see my article: Fear of Making a Decision: When Indecision Becomes a Decision).

It often helps to be able to talk to trusted friends and loved ones, especially if they have gone through their own life transitions successfully.

But sometimes friends and loved ones don't know what to say or, worse still, their own fear of change might cause them to advise you not to make any changes.

The other possibility is that, after a while, they might get tired of hearing you go back and forth about a decision and they won't know how to get you "unstuck" so you can overcome the obstacles that are keeping you from changing.

At that point, it would be helpful to seek help from a professional who has assisted clients to overcome the psychological blocks that keep you stuck (see my article: Overcoming Emotional Blocks in Therapy).

Some Questions to Ask Yourself

• How would I feel if I continued to be stuck in this situation for another year? another two years? or five years?

• What if I allowed my fear and mixed feelings to keep me stuck indefinitely?

• Would I look back at my life and say: If only I had made that change when I was younger, maybe I would be where I wanted to be today?

Getting Help in Therapy
There are times when you're unable to work out problems on your own.

Working with a skilled psychotherapy can help you to overcome the fear and ambivalence keeping you stuck.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist. 

I work with individual adults and couples and I have helped many clients to overcome fear of change.

To find out more about me, please visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

For a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Midlife Transitions - Part 2: Living the Life You Want to Live

In my last article, I began a discussion about midlife transitions by defining it, giving some of the possible symptoms and possible challenges involved.  In this article, I've provided a scenario to illustrate the points that I outlined in Part 1).

Midlife Transitions: Living Life the Life You Want to Live

The following scenario, which is a fictionalized account that represents many cases with all identifying information changed, is an example of someone who is going through a midlife transition, the challenges that he faced, and how he was helped in therapy.

Ed
Ed was in his life 40s when he began to feel a growing sense of dissatisfaction and unease about his life, especially his career.

After he obtained his MBA, he chose a career in finance while he was still in his mid-20s because he

enjoyed his finance courses in college and he wanted a career that would allow him a lifestyle that was different from his parents' lifestyle.

Having grown up in a family where his parents struggled to make ends meet, Ed knew he never wanted to live that way, so he chose a career where he and his family could live comfortably.

During his 25 year marriage, he felt proud that he and his family lived a comfortable life and he put his two children through college without his children having to go into debt.

He was also glad that he survived many of the changes, including many rounds of layoffs, in his field.

But Ed was aware that he was feeling an increasing sense of malaise at work.  What once made him happy in his career no longer held his interest.

Midlife Transition

He began to question whether he was living his life according to his core values.  And the more he questioned what he was doing in his career, the more he realized that his career choice now felt out of synch with his core values.

During his time in high school and freshman year in college, Ed was involved with volunteer activities that gave him a sense of satisfaction, including volunteering with a reading program where he read to young children in elementary school and volunteering at a no-kill animal shelter.  Both programs were important to him because he liked being around young children and he also liked animals.

During his early years in college, he thought he would choose a major that would be part of one of the helping professions.  But as time went on, Ed decided that it was more important to him to earn a good living and never struggle financially like his parents did, so he majored in Economics in college and obtained an MBA in graduate school.

For a time, after he got married, he was able to continue the volunteer activities, which gave him so much satisfaction.  But after he and his wife began having children and he had to put in long hours at work, he stopped volunteering because he didn't have enough time.

Now, just weeks away from his 48th birthday, Ed realized that he wasn't happy at work any more.  Even though he had been promoted and well compensated over the years, his career and his compensation no longer made him happy, and he wasn't sure what to do.

Midlife Transitions: Living the Life You Want to Live

As he became increasingly preoccupied with his dissatisfaction and after several nights of tossing and turning, he spoke to his wife, Susan, about his sense of malaise.

Susan told him that she noticed that he was irritable and grumpy, and she asked him what he wanted to do.  In response, Ed just threw up his hands--he didn't know what to do.  He couldn't just quit his job.

In the past, Ed tended to be a goal-oriented person and he wasn't usually at a loss about what to do when making major life decisions, so this was a new experience for him.  It was confusing and disheartening, and as time went on, it was starting to erode Ed's sense of self confidence.

Susan suggested that Ed consider seeing a psychotherapist to help him to sort things out and make some decisions.  But Ed had never been in therapy before.  He was concerned that therapy would take a long time, and he felt he didn't want to wait a long time to deal with his feelings.

So, Ed spoke with a close friend, Bill, who had been to therapy and asked Bill what he thought.  Bill told Ed that he was helped a lot in therapy when he was facing a major life decision similar to Ed's dilemma.

He told Ed that there are different type of therapists and different types of therapy.  He told Ed that if he wanted an interactive therapist who works in a dynamic way, he should ask about this when he called to make an appointment and get more details when he went for the consultation.

Even though the thought of going to therapy made Ed feel uncomfortable, the prospect of struggling on his own with this issue made him feel even more uncomfortable, so he started looking for a therapist and asking each one how s/he worked.

After a few consultations, Ed found a therapist who was interactive and dynamic.  They worked together to help Ed to discover what he really wanted at this point in his life so that he could take action.

Working together with the therapist, Ed realized that what was once important to him, working in finance and having a high income, was no longer important to him.  He liked being well compensated, but the money didn't compensate for his lack of satisfaction at work.

Exploring Core Values in Therapy and Developing Goals

He and his therapist explored Ed's core values and his current interests, and he was surprised to discover that he had been dissatisfied for quite some time, but he wasn't allowing himself to feel it.

With continued self exploration, Ed was surprised to realize that his volunteer work with children gave him the most satisfaction.  He realized that he wanted to set up his own volunteer reading program where adults would read to children to help them develop an interest in books and reading.

He knew that he couldn't establish this program overnight and he would need to do research and write a grant proposal.  This would take time and effort to establish.

It would also take time for Ed to see himself in a new way.  For most of his life, Ed defined himself in terms of his career.  He wondered what it might be like for him to see himself in this new way after so many years.

Once Ed made up his mind to proceed, he was excited about this new prospect.  More and more, he could imagine himself happily engaged in this new endeavor.  He felt his old confidence coming back, and he realized that this new project would be aligned with his core values.

He and Susan talked about this change and they realized that within two years Ed could retire from his finance job with a compensation package that would still allow them to live comfortably while Ed worked on his new project.

Each week Ed talked in therapy about how he was adjusting emotionally to seeing himself in this new way and how he was dealing with the challenges, both emotional and practical, that were involved.

As he came closer to his retirement, he discussed his idea with his boss and discovered that his firm was interested in contributing financially to the project.

Midlife Transitions: Living the Life You Want to Live

By the time Ed retired and began his new program, he was feeling more alive and full of purpose than he had in many years.  He and his wife were also closer and enjoying each other's company more than ever.  He knew he had made the right decision.

Conclusion
There are as many variations to midlife transitions as there are people who are going through these changes.

Everyone responds to change differently, especially major life changes.

Reevaluating life during your midlife is a common experience for most people.

People are often surprised to discover that they're yearning to return to vocation or interest that they abandoned many years ago.

Midlife is a time to evaluate your life thus far and make important decisions about how you want to live and how you'll accomplish your goals.

People are also surprised that once they've discovered what how they want to live and what they want to do, they experienced a renewed energy and greater satisfaction with life.

Getting Help in Therapy
Major life changes can be challenging as well as exhilarating.

Self exploration to discover what changes you want to make can be difficult to do on your own, especially if you fear making changes.

Struggling on your own with inner conflict and indecision can waste valuable time and can lead nowhere.

Working with a licensed psychotherapist, who works in an interactive and dynamic way, who can help you do the in-depth exploration of your inner world as well as helping you to take action once you've decided what you want to do, can be invaluable.

A skilled therapist can facilitate the process and help you to lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.  

I have helped many people to make changes in their life so they're leading the life they want to lead.

I use many different modalities and work in a creative, dynamic and interactive way.

To find out  more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 or email me.

Midlife Transitions: Reassessing Your Life - Part 1

In a prior article, Living Authentically - Aligned With Your Values, I discussed that people come to therapy because they're living lives that aren't aligned with their core values.  In this article, I'm focusing on a particular time in life, midlife, when people often reassess their lives and discover that they're not living the life that they want to live, and they're faced with the challenge of making changes so that they'll lead a more fulfilling life (see my article: Making Changes).

Midlife Change

Some people refer to this stage in life as "a midlife crisis" and for many people it does feel like a crisis, but not everyone responds to it in that way.

For many people, midlife, roughly defined from about age 40-60+, is viewed as a transitional time to assess how they're living their life now and how they want to live the rest of their life, especially if they're unhappy with where they are now (see my article: Navigating Life's Transitions)


Defining Midlife Transition
Let's start by defining what we mean by this transitional time in midlife, which can include:

• Questioning the meaning of life
• Questioning how you've been living your life and major decisions you've made in the past, which could include relationships, career and other major life decisions
• Questioning your faith/religion or lack of faith/religion
• Being preoccupied about aging and death
• Feeling confused about how you see yourself, others, and life in general
• Feeling bored and dissatisfied with life as it is now, including relationships, career, and overall lifestyle
• Feeling a general sense of restlessness
• Feeling a yearning to do something new and different
• Daydreaming about living a different kind of life, possibly in a different place with different people
• Feeling generally irritable and anger, which is not part of how you usually feel
• Noticing age-related changes in your body, including weight gain, hair loss, wrinkles, menopausal symptoms and other age-related changes
• Feeling less attractive
• Feeling a loss of confidence
• Acting out with alcohol, drugs, gambling, overspending, food or with a sexual affair
• Lack of libido with your partner or spouse
• Feeling nostalgic for a time when you were younger
• Daydreaming about "the one who got away" (a former romantic interest)
• And other related reactions

Not everyone who has some of the experiences listed above is going through a midlife crisis.

Much will depend on how you respond to the need for change.

Some people experience it as exhilarating and filled with new possibilities.

Other people respond with fear (see my articles: Fear of Change and Making Changes Within Yourself to Live the Life You Want).

Why Do People Go Through Midlife Transition?
Going through a midlife transition is a natural part of being human.

For some people, it occurs because of a major change in their lives or a major change in someone close to them, which could include:

• Losing a job
• Coping with a major illness
• Coping with a problem with a spouse or partner, including infidelity or other forms of betrayal
• Going through a divorce or breakup of a relationship
• Death of a parent or sibling
• Death of a spouse or significant other
• Death of a child
• Losing a close friend
• Considering reconciling a relationship with a parent, sibling or former lover or friend
• Shocking personal news 
• Financial crisis
• Other major losses or changes

For other people, it comes naturally at a certain age or time in life when they're faced with the reality of their own mortality.

Realizing that time is precious, they question how they want to spend the rest of their life so that they don't look back with regret about what they "could've" or "would've" done and didn't do.

Even though going through a midlife transition can be challenging and confusing, the alternative, which  would be living life in a mindless way without taking time to reassess your life, is more challenging in the long run and can lead to regret in old age without recourse for change at that point (see my article: Moving Out of Your Comfort Zone).

I'll continue this discussion in my next article with a scenario that illustrates some of the points that I've made in this article (see Part 2 of this topic).

Getting Help in Therapy
A midlife transition is usually a process.  It's not a change that's usually made in a day or a week.  It often occurs in stages and it's a normal part of life (see my article: Being Open to New Possibilities).

If you're struggling with midlife questions and issues, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who can help you to navigate through this challenging time.

Rather than struggling on your own, a licensed psychotherapist can help to facilitate this process by assessing your life so far, where you are, where you'd like to be, what you would need to do to get there and how to overcome the emotional blocks that might get in the way of your taking action.

With help, you could be navigate through this change and lead the life that you want to live.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many individuals and couples going through a midlife transition.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 or email me.

How to Get Out of a Rut - Part 2: Taking Steps

In my prior article, I began the discussion about getting out of a rut by defining what it is and what it's not as well as some of the common reasons why people get into ruts in their lives.

Taking Steps to Get Out of a Rut

In this article, I'm focusing on some tips that might be helpful to get out of a rut (see my article: Recapturing a Sense of Aliveness).

Since everyone is different, you might find some of these tips more helpful than others and, as I mentioned in my prior article, what might appear like being in a rut might actually be a more serious psychological problem that requires professional help.

For now, let's focus on some of the things that you might be able to do to get yourself out of a rut so you have more of a sense of well-being in your life.

Since many people are afraid that it would take too big an effort to make this kind of change, you can start by looking at one or two areas where you can begin to make small changes that feel do-able.

Tips for Getting Out of a Rut:

• Looking at Your Usual Routines:  Is there some small change that you can make to one of your usual routines?  So, for instance, if you always take the same route to work, what if you took a different route?  What might you see or who might you meet that might be new and different? (see my article:  Being Open to New Experiences).

• Revising Your To-Do List:  If you find that your to-do list is usually so long that you almost never complete it, why not consider revising it so that it's more manageable?  At the same time, you can include some self care items on your list to nurturing yourself.  

• Reflecting on Your Habitual Ways of Thinking:  This requires self reflection and, possibly, some help from a trust friend or relative, who might be helpful to see things about yourself that you might not see. When was the last time that you questioned certain feelings, opinions and values?  Are you able to stand back objectively and consider that you might be thinking and behaving in ways that no longer suit you and your loved ones?  Reflecting on your habitual ways of thinking might help you to see things from a different angle.  Or, after looking at things from a different angle, you might still feel the same.  It's the act of reflection and objectivity that's important.  Maybe you want to try challenging yourself by looking at TV news that you normally don't watch, so that if you normally watch a liberal news broadcast, try watching a more conservative one or vice versa (see my article:  Overcoming the "I'm Too Old to Change" Mindset).

Taking Steps to Get Out of a Rut

• Looking at Your Fear of Change:  Take time to question your fears.  Are your fears amorphous and vague or are they specific?  Are you afraid of specific changes or any type of change?  Take time to write about your fears and, in writing about them, do they stand up to the light of day or do you see certain distortions in your thinking that underlie your fears? (see my article:  Fear of Change).

• Bolstering Your Self Confidence:  Are you going through a period of self doubt because of recent circumstances or is your lack of self confidence a lifelong issue?  Were there other times in your life when you were afraid to make changes but you overcame your fears?  What enabled you do it?  If you can't draw from your own experience, are there people that you admire who have been able to get themselves out of their own ruts?  Are there things that they did that you can borrow that might help to bolster your self confidence.  If there isn't anyone that you know, use your imagination and think of someone that you admire from a TV program, a movie, a book or a historical figure.  How did he or she overcome a lack of self confidence to lead a more fulfilling life? (see my article:  Becoming the Person You Want to Be).

• Looking at the Impact of "Negative People" Around You:  For reasons of their own, many people who struggle with negative thoughts, often unwittingly, have a negative impact on the people around them.  Often these people, who might be depressed or have other psychological problems that they're unaware of, can dampen other people's enthusiasm for new plans or changes in their lives.  This doesn't mean that you should stop being emotionally supportive to friends or family members who are "down."  It does mean that it would be helpful for you to take a look at the impact that they might have on you and learn to distinguish between their unhappiness and how you feel.  In other words, distinguish what emotions belong to them and what belongs to you.  If there are acquaintances in your life who tend to discourage you, you might want to reduce the amount of time that you spend with them, especially if you're trying to get out of a rut yourself (see my article:  Workplace: Being Around Negative Coworkers Can Have a Negative Impact on Your Mood).

• Meeting New People:  If you have a set of friends that you really care about, that's great.  You might also consider getting out to meet new people that might help you to gain a new perspective, learn about new interests, and see new places.  

• Recognizing that Everyday is a New Day:  Your perspective about each day is very important.  If you look at each day as the same as the previous one, you're unlikely to get yourself out of a rut.  But if you look at each day as having the potential for new possibilities, you open yourself up to the possibility of new experiences.

Taking Steps to Get Out of a Rut

What If It's More Than Just Being in a Rut?
As I mentioned in my prior article, sometimes depression and anxiety, as well as other psychological problems, can be the underlying problems for being in a rut.

If you've tried own your own and you've been unsuccessful to try to get yourself on a more even keel, you could benefit from the help of a licensed mental health professional.

Getting Help in Therapy
Going for a consultation with a licensed therapist could help you to address the underlying issues that keep you feeling stuck (see my article:

Rather than continuing to suffer on your own, a licensed mental health professional can help you to overcome the obstacles that are keeping you from leading a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.