Changing Our Spots

I woke up this morning with the phrase, “I can’t be someone different”. It’s strange when this happens. Something that I’ve heard many times, something I’ve kind of accepted without thinking about it, suddenly comes into focus and I think is that true? The phrase in this context is being used in reaction to another person asking could we do, or not do, go, act, or say something differently. Basically challenging how we are or our decision. How we think and feel about things. So it’s a defensive reaction and is said in a slightly angry way. It’s kind of saying leave me alone or don’t make me do something different or, a bit more angry, I’m just fine as I am, back off. Get the feeling of it?

So what’s going on here? Well, first the biology. If this is an emotional reaction we are yet again back with the person deep in our brain who is always on the look out for anything felt as threatening. Remember, this part of us evolved to keep us maximum safe but their perception of what is dangerous is based upon what has been experienced as dangerous before, and as these experiences grow in number, then so do the possibilities of misreading the situation. Memory is a good friend and a source of misperception simultaneously. In this case, when we say “I can’t be someone different”, I imagine the person on the lookout is fearing that they are being asked to do something that will make them feel out of control - a feeling that feels dangerous. Much better then, based upon gut memories of when this has not gone well, to say back off and sound the alarms.

However, as we know, we do have a choice around this reactivity. It’s not set in stone and one of the most important benefits of practicing mindfulness is our growing ability to notice when this happens inside of us, and catching it, do something different. In our Sangha we have approached this largely through being aware of our felt sense. Noticing that when we feel threatened in some way then the felt sense is one of contraction. Just like touching an anemone or a snail - both instantly close. When we feel this happening in us we know that something is felt as a danger. Obviously there are real and legitimate threats that trigger this defensive closure and which defensively closing against is the correct thing to do. But there are a great many, misperceived or misconstrued, that are only fractionally threatening or are in fact not threatening at all - in fact they may just be an unrecognised opportunity.

All this is just a long winded way of talking about what the Dharma describes as self-cherishing. The deep inclination to hang onto our sense of who we are. An inclination that makes our sense of self very solid and the more solid it becomes the more it must defend its edges against becoming anything different. One of the words for this is reify. This means to make something concrete, but the problem with concrete - as opposed to water which can assume all shapes and continue to flow on - is that its rigidity makes it vulnerable to cracking when under pressure. That’s why its stiffened with metal rods. Basically, a self that is inappropriately or unnecessarily self-cherishing is a self that actually makes itself more endangered, not less. This is because a closed down and defended sense of who I am does not have the ability to easily change and it is this ability, being able to go with the flow, that gives the optimum chance of growth and ultimately, survival.

  And we have discovered that nature is on our side here. We now know that the brain, which was once thought of as unchanging once we became adults, is in fact capable of almost endless adaption. This is called ‘neural plasticity’ which means that we are built to adapt to changing situations. And this is really deep within us. Not only can we learn to easily change our mind about things, the brain itself, when one area has been damaged through an injury or a stroke perhaps, can reorganise itself to use a different area to take over from the damaged part. The message is really clear - change is life.

So finally, what about that phrase, “I can’t be someone else”? Well, its simply not true. Although personal characteristics apparently more or less persist for long periods of time - perhaps a whole life time - it is not true that they are present during each and every moment. Observation reveals that our coveted sense of self, defended against all threats, is in fact something that constantly comes and goes. Each night it slips away and when concentrating on something else it’s simply not present. Furthermore, the nature of this self is fluid, it’s more of a process that continually moves along. Sometimes it contracts and other times it expands, opens and flows. It never remains the same, is continually responsive to its physical and emotional environment, and most mysterious of all, when carefully looked for cannot actually be found. In Buddhist speak it’s simultaneously empty and aware. So while the phrase, “I can’t be someone different”, may be saying go away, leave me alone, don’t ask me to do something differently, actually we can. We can notice we have suddenly closed, relax, open, then who knows, a leopard who does not truly exist as a separate and unchanging entity - who is a glorious flowing beast - may indeed change its spots, or for that matter, a tiger its stripes.

NW. 6 February 2026