A lot of times when we’re presented with something different, people come to therapy because they want something different. They might not know what they want different, they just realize something is going on in their life – they don’t feel comfortable, they feel like life can be smoother or more enjoyable. It’s human nature that when something different pops up, there’s some resistance to that even if it’s something we want. There’s something called homeostasis where people get into patterns of behavior where it’s functional or dysfunctional and that homeostasis has proven to keep us alive. When we disrupt that homeostasis, it wants to return back to the old patterns. Often our brain interprets things that are different as dangerous.

A way of demonstrating this is to take both of your hands and naturally clasp them. For me, it’s natural to have my left thumb on top. If you switch them and put your right thumb on top, it feels a little uncomfortable and my natural reaction is to just switch it back. I have to think and say “is this ok? Or is it different?” This is different, there’s no danger in it even though it’s uncomfortable. So try that and clasp your hands and go from your normal to not normal position. It’s not dangerous, it’s different.

Another way of doing it is folding your arms. For me I naturally fold my arms and my right arm is out. To switch it is to put my left arm out and that doesn’t feel comfortable. Again, it’s not dangerous, it’s just different. But everything in me wants to put it back to normal so that I can feel normal. This is the same as patterns. You come into therapy and you’ve been folding your arms like this for 10 years or your whole life and we might point out some different things and give you options. I might suggest you fold your arms like this and originally when you do it, you say “I don’t want to do that, it doesn’t feel good.” Yet folding your arms like this or doing that action this way might actually get you where you’re trying to go. But again it’s just that homeostasis is going to push against that at the beginning, as well as just you make a little change and that could change a lot of your other patterns. It might feel a little off for a little bit. But often that will lead you to where you’re trying to go.