When Growth Feels Scary: Working Through Emotional Blocks and Old Patterns
Growth often sounds beautiful in theory—but when you're in it, it can feel like fear, grief, and resistance. At Soothing Connections Counseling in St. Charles, IL, many clients come to therapy not because they don’t want to grow, but because they feel stuck. Something seems to be holding them back. That "something" is often an emotional block—an internal response designed to protect you, that now limits you.
This week, we’ll explore why growth feels scary, how attachment history plays a central role in shaping your emotional blocks, and how Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) helps clients compassionately work through these obstacles to move toward genuine, lasting change.
Why Growth Triggers Fear
Change involves uncertainty, vulnerability, and loss—even if it’s change for the better. That’s why many of us find ourselves engaging in repetitive unhelpful behaviors or avoidance when we’re on the cusp of something new:
Starting a healthier relationship
Setting a needed boundary
Saying what we really feel
Letting go of an unhelpful or disruptive pattern
On the surface, these seem like positive changes, but they also threaten the nervous system’s deeply ingrained sense of safety. Our brains are wired to keep us alive, not necessarily happy. So when growth challenges our familiar coping mechanisms—no matter how outdated they might be—we often feel the emotional discomfort.
This is why growth often feels like grief. You're not just reaching toward something better; you’re also shedding what once felt like protection.
Recognizing Emotional Blocks
Emotional blocks can look like:
Feeling frozen or overwhelmed when trying to express yourself
Avoiding intimacy, even though you crave connection
Dismissing your feelings or telling yourself to "get over it"
Getting angry or withdrawing when things feel too vulnerable
These aren’t signs of failure. They’re adaptive strategies rooted in your past experiences. Emotional blocks are protective parts of you, trying to keep you from harm—even if they no longer serve your present reality.
At Soothing Connections, I help clients in the St. Charles area identify these patterns without judgment and with genuine compassion. You can’t shift what you don’t see. Awareness is the first courageous step.
The Role of Attachment History
Emotionally Focused Therapy is grounded in attachment theory, which teaches us that our earliest emotional experiences with caregivers shape how we view ourselves and others in relationships. If your caregivers were emotionally unavailable, unpredictable, or critical, you may have internalized beliefs such as:
"My needs are too much."
"If I get too close, I’ll be hurt."
"It’s safer not to feel."
These beliefs, formed early and reinforced over time, become the blueprint for how you navigate intimacy, vulnerability, and personal growth. They're not just cognitive—they're embedded in your nervous system.
For example:
A person with an avoidant attachment style may intellectually want a close relationship but feel suffocated when things get emotionally deep.
A person with anxious attachment may constantly second-guess their worth, even in loving partnerships.
In both cases, growth activates fear. It threatens the old attachment strategies that once helped them feel safe.
How EFT Helps You Unblock Emotionally
Emotionally Focused Therapy is uniquely equipped to help you work through emotional blocks. EFT doesn’t just focus on changing behavior. It focuses on accessing and transforming the underlying emotional experience that’s keeping you stuck.
Here’s how EFT supports emotional growth:
1. Creating a Safe Emotional Environment
In EFT, the therapist’s first goal is to build emotional safety. You won’t be rushed or judged. This secure space helps you slowly lower your emotional defenses.
In a safe, attuned environment, the nervous system begins to soften. From there, we can explore the vulnerable emotions beneath your protective strategies.
2. Identifying the Block in Real Time
Your therapist will help you notice blocks as they happen:
“I see you tear up when you talk about needing support, and then you immediately laugh and change the subject. What’s coming up for you right there?”
By gently naming the moment, the block becomes a doorway instead of a wall.
3. Accessing Primary Emotions
Most emotional blocks are defenses against more vulnerable feelings—fear, sadness, shame, longing. EFT helps you touch those core emotions in a way that feels safe, not overwhelming.
Accessing these feelings often brings relief, because they’re finally being acknowledged instead of avoided.
4. Restructuring Emotional Experience
Once you access these deeper emotional truths, you can begin to reshape them. For example:
"I’m not too much—I’ve just never had my needs responded to."
"I push people away, but what I really want is connection."
"I avoid conflict because I’m afraid of losing love—not because I don’t care."
Naming these truths allows for new patterns to emerge. You're not just thinking differently. You’re feeling differently.
5. Practicing New Responses
EFT doesn’t stop at insight. Your therapist will help you try new ways of responding—to yourself and others—so that your nervous system can begin to internalize safer, healthier emotional scripts.
This process takes time. Emotional blocks are resilient because they’ve been reinforced over years, sometimes decades. With compassionate, consistent support, they can soften. They can shift. And with that, growth becomes possible.
EFT in Individual and Couples Therapy
Whether you’re working individually or as a couple, EFT helps you move through stuck points:
Individuals: Learn to recognize and honor your emotional needs instead of shutting them down.
Couples: Identify the protective cycles keeping you apart and practice reaching for each other from a place of vulnerability.
At Soothing Connections Counseling, I work with clients from St. Charles and surrounding areas who are tired of repeating old emotional patterns. EFT offers a new path—one that moves beyond coping and toward genuine change.
Practices to Try at Home
Name Your Block Ask yourself: What do I avoid emotionally? When do I shut down? Write about it with compassion.
Tune Into the Body Emotional blocks often show up physically. Pay attention to tightness, numbness, or tension. What might your body be protecting you from?
Offer Kindness to the Protective Part Imagine the part of you that blocks growth. What does it need? Could you say, “Thank you for trying to keep me safe—I’m ready to listen to what you’re protecting”?
Reach for Support You don’t have to navigate this alone. Reach out to a trusted friend, partner, or therapist. Emotional growth thrives in connection.
Support for Your Growth in St. Charles, IL
At Soothing Connections Counseling, I understand that growth isn’t always comfortable. It brings up old wounds, confronts long-held fears, and requires bravery. I also believe in our human capacity for transformation.
Whether you're seeking therapy for yourself or your relationship, I offer a compassionate, attuned, and nonjudgmental space. Through Emotionally Focused Therapy, I will help you uncover and soften the emotional blocks that keep you stuck—so you can move toward the life and relationships you long for.
Growth doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs room to begin.
You’re allowed to move slowly. You’re allowed to be scared. It’s part of the journey of growing.
Next week, in the final post of the May Blog Series, “Blossoming Into Yourself: What It Really Means to ‘Grow’ in Therapy” we’ll explore how Personal growth is a continuous journey of self-discovery and transformation.