Candid Conversations Newsletter | Reluctant to Change — Toxic Fuel

.How we  adapt, what we absorb, and  what we must release to grow

Change doesn’t always arrive with a warning. Sometimes it knocks. Other times it creeps in quietly, sits in the corner, and waits to be named. After last week’s reflection on adaptation, I felt the conversation wasn’t finished. Not because there was more to say, but because there was more to see.

Change has texture.

It has behavior.

It costs something.

As the week gives way to the weekend, and the leaves loosen their grip on the trees, I kept thinking:

Change isn’t an idea.

It has shape. It has character. And it often arrives before we’re ready.

The Workshop 👷🏽

There was a season when I volunteered at a recovery workshop. People came with heavy stories and tired eyes, but what I remember most was the quiet courage in the room. The kind that doesn’t need a microphone.

Each session began with the same line:

“Hi, my name is ____, and I’m an alcoholic.”

At first, it annoyed me.

Why begin with a label? Why speak it out loud?

Don’t words have power? Doesn’t identity shape belief?

But over time, I saw what was really happening.

It wasn’t identity.

It was admission.

It wasn’t surrender.

It was exposure.

They weren’t introducing who they were.

They were confronting what had become unmanageable.

And that shifted something in me.

The first two steps of recovery read like a mirror:

1. Honesty — We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Hope — Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

That is when I understood: change doesn’t start with strength.

It starts with honesty, with vulnerability, with the quiet whisper that says,

I can’t keep going like this.

Some years ago I came across Brené Brown. Her work on vulnerability and shame opened a different doorway:

Change is not weakness.

It is admission.

It is exposure.

It is choice.

By introducing yourself as an alcoholic, you are not surrendering identity.

You are surrendering denial.

Let that simmer. 🤔

When Toxic Fuel Becomes Identity ⛽

Not all change heals.

Not all change sets us free.

Some change becomes toxic. A fuel we pull from pain just to keep moving forward.

It looks like:

•  Laughing at what really hurts

•  Keeping the peace by staying silent

•  Adapting to dysfunction until it feels normal

•  Getting so good at surviving that you forget how to live

We call it resilience.

We call it strength.

But sometimes it is captivity in better clothing.

“You’ve changed”

sometimes means

“You’re no longer easy to control.”

That is when change becomes costly.

That is when growing begins to feel like betrayal.

Why We Resist 🥷🏽

Neuroscience tells us the brain fears uncertainty more than pain.

Which means we often choose familiar suffering

over unfamiliar healing.

Psychologists call this identity threat. It is when change feels dangerous because belonging, validation, or control might be at risk.

So we protect ourselves.

Sometimes gently.

Sometimes without even knowing.

And sometimes nothing changes because nothing has forced us to.

Until, suddenly, it has.

When Adaptation Becomes Identity 🪪

I have learned this about human nature:

What we adapt to, we absorb.

What we practice, we become.

What we deny, we eventually act out.

Adaptation is useful.

Survival is necessary.

But practiced too long, survival becomes personality, and personality becomes armor.

We normalize the chaos.

We manage the dysfunction.

And one day, without warning,

we feel far from ourselves.

Not broken.

Just distant.

As if a quiet drift began years ago

and only now reached the shore.

The Hard Question 🙋🏽

Maybe we are not afraid of change itself.

Maybe we are afraid of this truth:

For change to live, something else must die.

A habit.

A belief.

An attachment.

A version of ourselves we once needed to survive, but no longer need to become.

Reflection 🖼️

What have I adapted to that no longer serves me?

What pain have I carried so well that I’ve forgotten it is heavy?

What is waiting to be reclaimed?

Nature never clings to what it is losing.

Trees do not argue with the wind.

They let go.

Not out of weakness,

but because survival requires it.

Maybe strength is not always holding on.

Maybe strength is quietly releasing

what once kept us alive.

A Nation’s Call 🗣️

Our beloved Jamaica continues to rebuild.

She gave us so much and asked for nothing.

Now she needs us, and we must answer.

If you can give, give.

If all you can do is share, share widely.

And if neither is possible, hold a thought, whisper a prayer,

or offer a moment of grace for those who lost everything

and still find the courage to rise.

Rebuilding a nation is a collective act of love.

Until next time.

 🫵🏽👉🏽Support Jamaica’s Recovery