Knowing Doesn’t Change Much
If you’ve been conscious, caffeinated, and mildly traumatized by life, you already know your patterns.
You know why you overfunction.
You know what your childhood wired into you.
You know the role you play in rooms.
You know the stories you reach for when things get uncomfortable.
You do not need another realization.
And yet knowing has not changed much, has it?
That is not because you are lazy, resistant, or avoiding growth.
It is because awareness has been wildly overcredited.
What actually changes people is not knowing.
It is what happens after the knowing shows up.
Why knowing feels productive and quietly keeps things stuck
From a brain perspective, understanding ourselves feels incredible.
Explanations create coherence. Coherence lowers anxiety. When our brain can explain our behavior, it feels like control. Even if nothing in our life actually changes.
That is why insight is addictive.
Insight gives us a dopamine hit without requiring uncertainty. We get the aha without the risk. Meaning without rearranging identity.
Which is why so many high-functioning adults can explain themselves beautifully while repeating the same patterns for decades.
We do not lack awareness.
We lack curiosity once awareness shows up.
The learning curve we aren't taught
When I was getting my Master’s in Teaching, there was one framework that stuck with me because it explained something grown adults quietly hate experiencing.
It goes like this.
First, we do not know what we do not know.
Then we know what we do not know.
Then we can do the thing, but only with effort.
And eventually, if we stay with it long enough, it becomes automatic.
Unconscious incompetence.
Conscious incompetence.
Conscious competence.
Unconscious competence.
Most people only hear that language in school or training.
But we live it everywhere.
At first, we do not know what we do not know.
That is survival mode. We are just getting through.
Then something cracks open.
We see the pattern.
We name the wound.
We understand why we are the way we are.
That moment feels huge.
It feels like arrival.
But it is not the finish line.
It is the middle.
Because knowing what we do not know is not the same as being able to live differently.
That in-between phase is brutal.
We can see the pattern and still fall into it.
Nothing feels automatic anymore.
This is where most adults stop.
We call it wisdom.
We call it acceptance.
We say, “At least I understand myself.”
But understanding is not integration.
Let’s take a peek at the sexy science, shall we?
The brain is a prediction machine.
It is constantly trying to reduce uncertainty and conserve energy. Familiar stories about who we are and how we behave are efficient. They cost less.
Curiosity breaks efficiency.
Curiosity introduces prediction error. That is the moment the brain realizes the old map no longer fits the terrain. That moment is metabolically expensive and emotionally destabilizing.
Which means curiosity does not feel soothing.
It feels risky.
Under chronic stress, curiosity is one of the first things to shut down. Elevated cortisol narrows attention. Conclusions speed up. Identity hardens.
That is why burnout does not make us open-minded.
It makes us rigid.
Not a mindset issue.
Nervous system math.
Here’s where a lot of smart people step on their own junk
When curiosity is not grounded in respect, it turns on us.
We start gaslighting ourselves.
Wtf is wrong with me?
Shouldn’t you know by now?
Why can’t I just fix this already?
That is not curiosity.
That is threat response pretending to ask questions.
Respect changes the posture. It keeps the prefrontal cortex online. It lets us stay present without collapse.
With respect, the questions soften without losing power.
What did this protect me from?
What made sense then?
What might be outdated now?
That is not self-help.
That is regulation.
We cannot be genuinely curious about ourselves while our nervous system thinks it is under attack.
Where real change actually happens
The shift does not come from more insight.
It comes from staying curious while we practice a new way of being. Slowly. Awkwardly. On purpose.
This is the phase no one glamorizes.
Change takes effort.
We have to slow down.
Our nervous system wants the old shortcut.
Over time, something rewires.
Not intellectually.
Somatically.
The new response gets easier.
The old story loosens.
We stop narrating the change because we are busy living it.
That is integration.
That is unconscious competence.
And we cannot think our way there.
What Narrative Intelligence actually trains
When I trained in Narrative Intelligence, the work was not about analyzing my story or polishing it into something inspiring.
It was about staying present when the story I had been living stopped fitting.
That framework, developed and taught by Michael McRay, trains our capacity to tolerate ambiguity. To stay in relationship with our story without rushing to certainty, self-judgment, or resolution.
Cognitively, this builds flexibility.
Lived-wise, it keeps survival identities from hardening into destiny.
Curiosity keeps the story alive long enough for it to change.
Let’s connect some dots
Most of us do not need more insight.
We need the capacity to stay curious once insight stops being comforting. Without freezing. Without self-attacking. Without sprinting back to certainty.
Awareness gets us to the doorway.
Curiosity is what helps us walk through.
Turning the page
There is a reason curiosity gets softened and sold as something gentle.
Real curiosity is inconvenient.
It disrupts identities that still function.
It asks questions that might require change.
In a culture obsessed with polish, performance, and knowing exactly who we are, staying curious is a risk.
Not because it is soft.
Because it refuses to let survival masquerade as identity.
And once you see that, you do not need another realization.
You need room to stay curious long enough for something new to take shape.
You will feel the urge to rush past this moment. Stay a little longer.
Want to launch your comeback tour together? Start here.
