Last Updated on June 18, 2025

Falling apart can be a sign of progress

Is the world falling apart?

Sometimes it seems that way.

But it’s not the world that’s falling apart.

It’s the old paradigm of fear and pain that’s falling apart.

That’s because it never worked very well anyway.

And more and more people are waking up to that fact.

Allow me to explain.

Podcasting fever

On Tuesday June 3rd, I woke up feeling excited.

I had two podcast guest appearances scheduled for that day.

I spoke on the first podcast, and it went great.

But then almost immediately afterwards, I was overwhelmed with fear and self-doubt.

In fact, I spent most of the day wrestling with intense negative thoughts and feelings.

I felt almost sick.

Then I went on my second podcast and it also went great.

And once again, afterwards I felt awful, like I was going crazy or being torn apart.

What the heck were all those negative thoughts and feelings about?

They were simply the old paradigm falling away.

The paradigm of self-doubt that has kept me stuck in growing my business.

Bursting the old bubble

I did my best to feel all the feelings, tap on them, do pattern interrupts with them.

I even did some body scan vipassana meditation with them.

It was intense.

But I survived.

In fact the next week, on Tuesday June 10th, I had another podcast guest appearance.

Again it went great.

But this time afterwards, I felt fine.

No big emotional chaos and craziness.

Just ordinary.

I’d like to say this is because of some powerful hypnosis session I did.

And I have been doing some incredibly deep inner work.

Including some radical new stuff my wife has been cooking up called “The Rainbow Mandala.”

But honestly I don’t really know why it was like torture one day and then totally fine a week later.

Except that it was like what psychologists call an “extinction burst.”

Making friends with the resistance

You see, before we make a big change, there is often some resistance inside that prevents the change.

The key is not to try to destroy resistance in an inner war, but to welcome it.

What you resist, persists.

As the great hypnotherapist Stephen Gilligan said,

“Resistance is a sign of insufficient rapport.”

If we can welcome the resistance and integrate it, then there is nothing to resist!

We do this first by waking up from the trance of our suffering.

When we are completely absorbed in negative thoughts and feelings, we confuse these for reality itself.

But when we can pop out of the trance enough times, then we start to see that it is just one way of looking at things.

Then we can trance-end the problem state, and start to trance-form a more resourceful state.

Ending the Punishment Paradigm trance

There is a trance we are all stuck in sometimes.

It’s the trance that says, “The only way to motivate ourselves and others is with fear and pain.”

This is the trance that causes all self-hatred, all war, all abusive parenting, all high-pressure sales conversations.

It also shows up every time we feel like we’re not doing enough, not good enough, or not capable enough.

The Punishment Paradigm trance says we are inherently bad and therefore need to be punished.

But luckily, that’s not reality, it’s just a map of reality.

And there’s a totally different map we can use to navigate at any moment.

Instead of fear and pain, we can motivate ourselves and others with love and joy.

When we do this, instead of causing harm, we heal.

Instead of burning out, we light up.

Instead of feeling not good enough, we feel worthy and loved…just for existing.

In every moment we have a choice.

Are we going to live from fear and pain, or joy and love?

And every moment matters.

Take care,

 

 

 

~Duff
(they/them)

P.S. If you are burned out, stressed out, and wanting to learn how to get more things done from love and joy, you can book a free 30-minute consultation today.

I have 1-on-1 coaching and a weekly group coaching class that might be right for you.