There are moments in personal growth that feel exciting. You uncover something about yourself. You recognize an old belief that's been quietly running your life. You start to see that a story you've carried for years might not be true after all.
For a while, everything moves forward.
Then, sometimes, it doesn't.
The old reactions return. The old doubts get loud again. You catch yourself responding the exact way you thought you'd already left behind.
If you're doing the inner work and you've hit one of those plateaus, this is for you.
What Jack the jacaranda taught me
That's our jacaranda tree behind me in the video. We call him Jack — our little touch of Australia here in Cyprus.
Jack has power lines running above him, so I want his branches growing outward instead of up. To help that along, I've tied a small pot to one of his branches. The weight pulls the branch in the direction I want it to grow. Once the branch gets strong enough to hold that shape on its own, I'll take the pot off.
Watching this, I realized reframing our own stories works almost the same way.
You can know intellectually that an old story is false and still feel your thoughts, emotions, and reactions pulling in the old direction anyway. That story has history behind it — maybe other people repeated it, maybe painful experiences reinforced it, maybe it became part of the personality you built just to feel safe.
A new story can be true and still feel unfamiliar. That's why it sometimes needs support while it takes root.
When the old patterns pull you back
When old patterns resurface, it's easy to think you're back where you started.
You're not.
You have awareness now that you didn't have before. You might still feel the old reaction, but you can notice it. You can ask whether it's really you, or just an old story you learned to live inside.
That noticing is everything.
Part of you might still be saying:
"This is who we are."
"This is what always happens."
"This is what we have to do to stay safe."
And another part is starting to answer back:
"No, that's not the whole story."
"That's not who I really am."
"I get to choose something different."
It can feel like a war between the old you and the real you. I'm not saying your past self was wrong, or that everything about who you used to be was false — a lot of it developed for good reasons. But some of what we carry was built for protection, not truth. And when we start uncovering those parts, they push back.
Your new story needs an anchor
That pot hanging off Jack's branch isn't forcing him into something unnatural — it's helping him grow in a healthier direction. We need something similar.
I don't love the word "force." I think we're meant to be in flow, and real control comes from letting go, not gripping harder. So think of your anchor less as a cage and more as a reminder: hey, this is the real story, not that one.
Your anchor might be a phrase you return to. A journal where you track moments that challenge the old belief. A conversation with someone who actually sees you. Or a practice — inner child work, meditation, coaching, whatever form of reflection works for you.
For me, it's inner child work. It lets me go back to where a story first started and offer a different understanding of what happened — recognizing that the kid who formed that belief was just doing their best with what they had at the time. That builds compassion. And it gives me somewhere to return to whenever the old story tries to take the wheel again.
Your anchor doesn't have to look like mine. It just has to help you reconnect with what's actually true.
Go find the evidence
Old stories survive because we keep collecting evidence for them.
Say someone believes "I always get things wrong." They'll remember every mistake, every awkward moment, every bad call. Meanwhile they'll skip right past the hundreds of times they made a smart decision, solved a problem, or handled something hard really well.
Reframing isn't pretending the mistakes never happened. It's looking at the whole picture.
When the old story shows up, go looking for evidence of the new one. When have you actually acted like the person you believe you really are? What have you survived or changed that this old story conveniently ignores? What would someone who truly loves you say about this belief?
You're not manufacturing a fake positive story. You're recovering the parts of your life the old narrative has been filtering out.
Don't push so hard you stop listening
When we feel stuck, the instinct is to push harder. We tell ourselves we should be over this by now, and we get impatient with the parts of us that are still scared or resistant.
But force isn't always the answer. Sometimes you gain control by letting go — not giving up, just easing off the fight with yourself.
Instead of trying to crush the old story, get curious about it. What's it protecting? What does it think will happen if you let it go? What did it once help you survive?
Curiosity opens up understanding. And once you understand a pattern instead of just fighting it, you can come back to your new story without treating yourself like the enemy.
Progress doesn't always look dramatic
We picture breakthroughs as one big moment where everything shifts. Sometimes it is that. More often, it's quieter.
It's not believing the old thought quite as fast. Noticing the reaction before you act on it. Bouncing back from a hard moment in an hour instead of a week. Talking to yourself with compassion where you'd have used judgment before.
It's going back to your anchor, again and again. Each return makes the new direction a little stronger — just like Jack's branch. Eventually, the support won't be needed anymore. You won't have to keep reminding yourself of the new story. It'll just be how you live.
Keep strengthening what's true
If you've hit a plateau, that doesn't mean you've failed. You might just be at the threshold where the old story is losing its grip and the new one is still gaining strength. Be patient with that.
Keep asking the questions. Keep returning to the experiences that remind you who you are. Keep using whatever practice helps you reconnect with yourself.
You're peeling back stories that may have been thickening for decades — that takes real courage. It's like pulling a loose thread on a jumper without knowing how much is going to unravel. Sometimes the whole jumper does need to come apart. But that unraveling is also your chance to build something that actually fits you.
Eventually the old story loses its power. The pot comes off. The branch keeps growing in its new direction, because by then, that direction is just natural.
Until then — keep going back to your anchor. Keep strengthening the true story.
I love you, and I'm cheering you on. This is courageous work. If there's anything you'd like me to dig into more, let me know — I'd genuinely love to hear it.