The Cost of Change: A Practice for Readiness

Hello, friends.

I want to offer a perspective. Not a prescription, not a solution, but an awareness tool. Something you can sit with, explore, and maybe even play with.

This week’s reflection centers on a simple but often uncomfortable truth:

Change comes with both benefits and challenges.

And we tend to forget that.

It’s easy to buy into the fantasy that change, or the process of going after what we want, will deliver only reward. That if we can fix this thing, get over that hurdle, break through this block, then we’ll finally have what we’ve been searching for.

But sometimes, in chasing greener grass, we forget to look down at the ground we’re already standing on. And more importantly, we forget to ask why we’ve stayed here so long.

In my work with clients, I often introduce a tool I’ve found to be both simple and meaningful. It's a way to assess our readiness for change. Not from a critical lens, but through gentle observation.

Before I introduce the tool, I want to share a story.

About two years ago, I got a call from a potential client. She had serious back and hip issues. Debilitating pain, almost daily. She had already worked with osteopaths, naturopaths, physiotherapists, and others and still hadn’t found relief.

During our consult, I shared how I approach healing by weaving together mental and emotional exploration, nutritional and gut health, biomechanics, and lifestyle. I explained how pain is often an expression of something deeper, a conversation the body is trying to have with us.

She paused, and then said she wasn’t interested in all that. She wanted me to do a physical assessment, give her some corrective exercises, and hopefully fix her pain.

At that time, I was still open to working that way, so I said yes. But something inside me stirred. A question surfaced. Not from my mind, but maybe from somewhere deeper.

I asked, “Would you be open to a strange question?”

She said yes.

I asked, “Are you willing to consider how you benefit from your pain? And are you willing to face the consequences of changing it?”

There was silence. Then she said, “That’s the weirdest question I’ve ever heard.”

I told her, “Well, I’m a weird guy.”

She laughed and said she needed to sit with it.

Three weeks later, she called me back.

She said, “That question stuck with me. No one’s ever asked me that. And after sitting with it, I realized… at work, I get the best parking space. I get to leave at noon every day. My husband pays more attention to me. He cooks all my meals. I don’t have to shop or cook. My pain gives me things I didn’t realize.”

She listed benefit after benefit.

And then she said, “I’m not ready to give those things up. I’m not ready to change.”

That conversation stayed with me. Because the truth is, change can blow up your life.

It doesn’t always lead to resolution. Sometimes, it asks you to let go of the very systems that have kept you safe, seen, or significant even if those systems also hurt you.

Which brings us to this week’s practice:

The Four Quadrants of Change

Take out a piece of paper and divide it into four sections.

Label them:

1. Benefits of Staying the Same

2. Challenges of Staying the Same

3. Benefits of Changing

4. Challenges of Changing

Then begin to write. Pour it out. Get honest. Get weird. Get curious.

Ask yourself:

• How do I benefit from staying exactly as I am?

• What feels hard or heavy about staying the same?

• What could improve or open up if I truly changed?

• What might be difficult, scary, or destabilizing if I did?

Don’t rush through it. Let each quadrant grow. Even if nothing comes up at first, that too is worth writing. Denial is a form of protection. Start there.

Now, once your lists are full, move to the emotional layer.

Go through each item and rate it on a scale of 1 to 5. Five being the strongest emotional charge whether positive or negative. You're assessing the emotional weight, not its direction.

Then add up the charges in each quadrant.

What you’ll be left with is a map of emotional readiness.

If the "benefits of staying the same" are highly charged, you may not be ready for change yet. And that’s okay.

You may need to explore what’s underneath those charges what’s still serving you, protecting you, or meeting a need.

This practice isn’t here to pressure you into change. It’s here to help you become more aware of what’s happening inside you when you think about change.

It invites you to be face to face with the paradox:

• The pain you want to escape might be offering you something.

• The change you crave might come at a cost you're not yet ready to pay.

That doesn’t make you stuck. It makes you honest.

And that honesty is where real movement begins.

So if you feel called, take this tool and run with it. Or walk with it. Or curl up with it like a snail and let it unfold slowly.

Explore the questions. Feel the charges. Let yourself be surprised.

Change isn’t always about doing more. Sometimes it starts by sitting still long enough to know why you’ve stayed.

With you in the exploration,
Jator

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