How Change Really Happens
By Peter Howe
There’s a lot of talk out there about change.
Strategies, systems, steps, habits, hacks—fix your mindset, rewire your brain, will yourself to change.
It can be exhausting.
Because here’s the truth, most people don’t realise:
Change is not about trying harder — it’s about seeing differently.
Real change—the kind that lasts, frees you, and makes you feel like a weight has been lifted—comes from insight.
Not from effort.
Not from more thinking.
And definitely not from force.
Insight is a shift in sight—from within. It fundamentally changes how you see and experience yourself, others, and the world around you.
That’s the power of insight. And it’s how people really change.
Let’s explore this further.
What Is Insight, Really?
Insight isn’t always some lightning bolt from the sky.
Sure, it can be.
It can knock your socks off, bring tears to your eyes, or make you laugh at how simple the truth really is.
But more often than not?
It’s subtle.
Totally ordinary.
Totally familiar, like you’ve known it your whole life.
Sometimes it’s exciting.
Sometimes it’s a wave of peace.
But every time it feels like coming home.
It’s not something you can plan.
You can’t script it, schedule it into your calendar, or think your way into it.
You can’t force insights.
But you can create the conditions that make you more receptive to them.
A quieter mind.
An open heart.
More love, joy, gratitude, and presence.
And the recognition that you are one with life.
You are not separate from it, but a unique expression of it.
These aren’t states to chase or force.
They’re what naturally arise when we stop trying to control our experience…and simply allow ourselves to be.
You’ve Had Them Already
Think about it.
Do you remember seeing something differently in your life—about a relationship, a habit, a fear—and everything shifted?
That moment when an old problem you’ve been trying to let go of dissolves, because you saw it in a whole new way?
Like when I quit smoking in my twenties.
I’d known it was bad for years.
I knew I needed to quit these things.
But change didn’t happen because it was still an intellectual idea.
I knew it in my head, not in my heart.
But it wasn’t until one moment—one insight—that I truly saw what I was doing.
“This is killing me! What am I doing to myself?”
”This doesn’t make sense anymore.”
I never smoked again, not because of willpower. I tried that already.
But because I saw it beyond my intellect and in the truest part of me.
Insight in one moment did what years of trying couldn’t do.
That’s the power of seeing.
Insight vs. Willpower
We don’t change through willpower. Not for long anyway.
We change when we see something true.
When our understanding shifts, this leads to a shift in our consciousness, which naturally shifts our behaviour.
That’s why insight is powerful.
It’s not intellectual—it’s experiential.
It’s not memorised—it’s realised.
I often say to people that the moment we realise, we start seeing with ‘real eyes.’
And that’s when the truth begins to reveal itself.
When people have an insight, they often feel:
Lighter
More relaxed
More connected
More clear
More themselves
I’ve seen clients cry, laugh, feel like they’ve come back into their bodies, or simply sit in peaceful silence.
It shows up in its own unique way for all of us.
But it always brings the same thing:
Freedom.
You can’t force insight.
But you can become more available to it.
And that starts with your state of mind.
These are the things that help me:
Dropping all the thinking I have around it
Forgetting about it and doing something else that I enjoy
Taking a walk in nature
Listening to music
Meditating and stillness
Stop treating your life like a problem to solve. It’s meant to be lived.
Insight lives in the space between thoughts, not the pressure to figure things out.
The more space in your mind, the more open and receptive you are to the answers and fresh insights.
Not because you pushed harder, but because you slowed down enough to let it through.
You Are Designed for Insight and Change
Insight is built into you. It’s alive as much as you are.
But here’s where we get stuck:
We try to think our way into transformation, setting up shop in our intellectual heads.
Constantly analysing, planning and perfecting our way into change.
But the intellect doesn’t create transformation. Only insight does.
Here’s another way we get stuck:
We try so hard to change!
We read all the books, listen to all the podcasts, and scroll every forum, telling ourselves we’re “doing the work.” There’s a constant narrative about how much inner work we’re doing and how hard we’re working on ourselves.
But here’s the thing:
It doesn’t make sense to work hard on yourself because the moment you drop that story and love yourself as you are, change happens naturally.
We don’t change through striving.
We change through acceptance, not expectance.
You Don’t Need to Hit Rock Bottom
Yes, insight can come when we’re at our lowest, because it’s always available to us.
I’ve seen that in others.
I’ve lived it myself.
I’ve been at rock bottom.
But that’s not a requirement.
You don’t have to suffer to see something new.
You don’t have to hit rock bottom to rise.
Insight is always available.
Not just in crisis, but in quiet moments, gentle reflection, and stillness.
It’s so ordinary that we often overlook it, and the insights we have every day.
Because we think it has to be some grandiose moment—
Or, that we have to hit rock bottom first.
But we don’t.
Even in the most ordinary of days,
Insight quietly appears—
And can shift everything.
It doesn’t require effort.
It just asks for your presence.
A little less doing.
A little more listening.
A little more seeing
A little more trust in the silence between your thoughts.
Because the wisdom you’re looking for isn’t missing—
You’ve just been looking in the wrong direction.
And when you stop…
Breathe…
And become available to the moment—
Insight finds you.
It often whispers, not shouts.
So the question is:
Are you listening to it?
Are you trusting it?
Are you willing to trust its guidance?
Are you willing to pause, soften, and look with fresh eyes?
Not for what’s wrong, but for what’s already true and speaking to you?
What Stops Insight?
Trying too hard
Fixating on what’s wrong
Resisting and not trusting life
Obsessing over self-improvement
Believing you need to fix yourself and your problems before you can be free
Getting caught up in the noise of your thoughts
Taking life too seriously
Not cultivating joy, gratitude and acceptance
What if you began to stop all that?
What if you simply allowed yourself to be where you are?
What if you stopped resisting life and started meeting it?
What if you stopped striving and started thriving?
Insight arises most powerfully when you’re at peace with yourself and what is.
When you stop forcing change, you start being open to what life already offers you.
And here’s what’s often forgotten:
Insight isn’t something you earn.
It’s not a reward for effort.
It’s a shift in perspective that comes from a quieter place within you.
But it’s always available—even when the noise is loud and overwhelming.
So if change is feeling hard right now… That’s okay.
You're not behind. You're not doing it wrong.
You're already on the path—because you are the path.
And the more you trust life (instead of wrestling it),
Life can show you what’s been true all along.
Take Response-Ability
I’m not talking about responsibility in the old school sense—the pressure to carry everything and hold it all together.,
I’m talking about response-ability:
Your innate ability to respond to life from a clearer, wiser space.
That begins by noticing what's happening in the space of your mind.
What is your thinking doing to you right now?
Is it helping—or hurting you?
Is it pointing you back inward to your deeper knowing?
Or is it spinning you outward into blame, worry, fear, or control?
But when you see yourself caught up in unhelpful thinking, you can stop fully identifying with its false stories.
You’ve already stepped into awareness, and that alone creates more space in your mind.
You don’t need to be perfect with this.
Just recognise the crucial role your thinking plays in your experience, because it’s not what’s happening out there that’s making you feel the way you do.
It’s your interpretation of it.
Your moment-to-moment thinking.
And when you see that, a whole new world opens up.
You get to choose not just what you do, but where you respond from.
Not from fear.
Not from reactivity.
Not from the stories in your head.
But from the stillness beneath them.
From presence.
From clarity.
From love.
And remembering where your power truly lives.
That’s response-ability.
That moment of awareness—that pause—is where insight lives.
Trust, Patience, and Faith
We want answers.
Now.
Yesterday, even.
But insight comes in its own timing.
It’s never too soon.
Never too late.
Always perfect.
Even if it doesn’t feel like it.
That’s where trust comes in.
Trust that where you are is exactly where you’re meant to be, because that’s where you are.
Trust that the wisdom you’re searching for isn’t “out there”—it’s already within you.
That life is for you, not against you.
It’s always guiding and supporting you, working things out for you.
My friend,
Patience. Faith. Trust.
- How would your life be different if you embodied these qualities?
- What if they were part of your true identity?
- How would the world look to you?
- How would you see the problems in your life?
- What new possibilities become available?
You Haven’t Missed Anything
It’s very easy to doubt the timing.
To think you should be further along.
To wonder why you haven’t had the insight yet, why others seem to get it, but you’re still waiting.
But that pressure?
That impatience?
That’s just more noise from the same mind that wants certainty and control.
Insight comes in divine timing.
So you can relax now.
You don’t need to white-knuckle your way through life.
You can stop desperately searching for the answers…
And start creating space for them.
Because the truth is:
You’re not behind.
You haven’t missed anything.
And there’s nothing wrong with you for not seeing it yet.
Insight doesn’t need you to create it.
It needs you to trust it.
The fact that you’re curious… open… even reading this—
Means you’re ready to see more clearly that…
Life is always unfolding in perfect orchestration for your spiritual evolution.
So, let yourself not know for a little while.
Let yourself rest in the mystery.
The right answers—the real answers—always come.
Final Thoughts
Think back to the times when you’ve had insights—
Those moments of truth that shifted something inside.
Were you busy doing something?
Or were you more at ease?
Was your mind racing?
Or was it a little more settled?
Were you trying hard to figure it all out?
Or did you stop trying…
And it came when you least expected it?
So maybe you don’t need to force the next breakthrough.
Maybe the opportunity isn’t to keep trying harder or endlessly working on yourself…
But to slow down.
To take yourself—and life—a little less seriously.
To start enjoying it.
To start enjoying being you.
To feel grateful for being alive.
And to fully accept where you are, right now.
To look within…
And trust the natural unfoldment of your life.
Have faith…
That the answers will come.
And have patience…
That everything is working out for you.
Because it always does.
When you truly see something new...
You become someone new.
Because your consciousness has shifted.
You’re looking with new eyes—
Meeting the moment with fresh understanding.
And the powerful thing is…
It doesn’t feel like a strategy.
It feels like remembering.
You can’t control when insight comes.
But when you realise it’s the only thing that truly transforms—
You stop wasting energy chasing things that you know don’t really work.
You stop trying to will yourself into change.
You stop fixating on fixing.
And something amazing happens.
Change becomes effortless.
You begin to see that life is a blank canvas,
And you are the artist.
You choose the colours.
You choose the strokes.
You choose how to bring it to life.
And that realisation?
It is the most freeing, empowering thing there is.
From my artist to yours,
Peter
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