30. G-Force: The Science Behind Why Positive Change Can Feel So Hard

Season #2 September 12, 2026

"I used to believe fear meant I was failing. Now I understand it may be evidence that God is helping me grow." - Emily Layton

Have you ever started making positive changes in your life, only to find yourself feeling more anxious, discouraged, or full of self-doubt? Maybe you're trying to strengthen your relationship with God, improve your marriage or family relationships, create healthier habits, or become more intentional in the way you live. Instead of feeling more peaceful, you're wondering if you've made things more complicated, if your growth is affecting your relationships, or if it would simply be easier to return to the status quo than keep pushing through the messy middle of change.

In this episode, Emily shares a personal experience that changed the way she understands resistance. As she created a new back-to-school routine centered on living more soulfully aligned, she unexpectedly experienced fear, doubt, and emotional heaviness. Through journaling, Newton's Third Law, and Lehi's teaching that there must needs be opposition in all things, she discovered a powerful truth: resistance isn't always evidence that you're failing. Sometimes it's evidence that you're moving forward.

If you've ever questioned yourself because positive change suddenly feels harder instead of easier, this episode will help you recognize resistance with greater clarity, respond with curiosity instead of shame, and continue moving forward with faith.

Expect this episode to help you:

Recognize why meaningful personal and spiritual growth can be accompanied by unexpected resistance.
Understand why positive change can sometimes feel harder before it feels easier.
Identify all-or-nothing thinking that can quietly undermine your confidence and progress.
Discern the difference between truth and the fearful stories your mind may be telling you.
Replace shame and self-judgment with awareness, curiosity, and compassion.
Continue making positive changes even when the journey feels messy or uncomfortable.
Strengthen your trust in God as you become who He created you to be.

More invitations to grow

If you're walking through the messy middle of personal growth, you don't have to do it alone. Grow In the Light Growth Groups provide Christ-centered community, practical tools, and supportive coaching to help you continue becoming who God created you to be.

Learn more at www.GrowInTheLight.com.

About Emily

Emily Layton is the founder of Grow In the Light. With a master's degree in Family Life Education and Human Development, a passion for combining gospel principles, brain science, and practical tools for lasting growth and development, she helps women receive light, magnify light, and share light as they become who God created them to be.

Scriptures and references

2 Nephi 2:11 - "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things."

Doctrine and Covenants 45:57 - "Receive the truth, and have taken the Holy Spirit for your guide."

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Timestamps

00:00 Recognizing anxiety and fear during positive change

04:00 Understanding resistance and the "Growth Force"

08:00 Connecting physical and spiritual laws of opposition

12:00 How the brain resists positive change

16:00 Turning G-force into Growth Force

20:00 Recognizing self-sabotage and all-or-nothing thinking

24:00 Distinguishing truth from fearful stories

28:00 Holding resistance with curiosity instead of shame

32:00 Seeing resistance as evidence of growth

36:00 More invitations to grow

Episode Transcript

30. G-Force The Science Behind Growth's Growing Pains
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[00:00:00] So for me, the end of summer can feel kind of like January does with the new year. With back to school season and early morning seminary starting again, I know I have to adjust my bedtime and all the other waterfall of things associated in the schedule to compensate for that. I've also learned a lot this year about wise women check-in times and how to focus on living more soulfully aligned, and I wanted to make a simple system to incorporate all of these things so our transition into back to school can be successful So I sat down and created a new schedule for myself and have been implementing it and have loved the fruits that have come from it in my day.

Well, most of the fruits I have loved. I noticed that at night a couple of times, there was a heaviness that settled into my heart, kind of an anxiety that I couldn't put my finger on and couldn't shake. And then this morning, I woke up with a heavy sense of doubt and unsettledness in my heart. It was a physical sensation of feeling uprooted and anxious, and I did not like it, and I didn't want it to sabotage my day.

I have my tools of working my steps up from the low brain when I recognize I'm in a place I don't want to be. So I sat down to journal some awareness points. Awareness is our first step on those steps up. And I just sat down to, to figure out a little more, to put words to the sensation I was feeling and the thoughts and the feelings I was experiencing.

And as I did so, I came to have some clarity that what I was dealing with was just fear. That's how fear felt in my body. As I pondered on it, the insight came that it has to do with some laws of the universe. There are some physical and spiritual laws that are parallel at work here. So the physical law is Newton's third law of motion that states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

And then in the Book of Mormon, in 2 Nephi 2:11, the prophet Lehi witnesses to a similar concept, that there must needs be opposition in all things. So what these two laws tell me is that the positive momentum and the changes that are happening inside of me in my growing and becoming have an equal and opposite force, and the fear is just pushing back subconsciously inside of me.

Surprise, surprise, the brain does not like change. I know that's not new to any of us, but sometimes the brain can be sneaky in how it stages its resistance. Even though I love my new schedule and have found it easy to be consistent with so far, subconsciously my brain was sabotaging me with the feelings and the sensations of anxiety and fear.

On a recent road trip out to Utah this summer, my son and I listened to the book Project Hail Mary, and we totally loved it. I would recommend it for any family So my brain has been working on these space-themed metaphors. And as I sat with and pondered these sensations this morning, the thought came to me that the heaviness I was feeling in my heart was just like a G-force that astronauts feel when they launch into outer space.

As I'm working to launch into a higher and holier orbit in these changes and growth in my life, I was literally experiencing a physical force that was weighing down on my heart. I pondered how this was just like the G-force that astronauts experience and how they train to be able to endure and anticipate this change.

And as I did so, I realized, the wordsmith in me just loved this, that the G-force was just my growth [00:04:00] force. It was opposition or resistance to my growth. In equal and opposite form, it was pushing back against the positive, forward-moving, growing I'm experiencing. I wanted to share this today because sometimes in our growth journey, we have unexpected hiccups.

We have self-sabotage or relationship resistance or experiences that discourage and frustrate us, and it's hard to explain these things. It's easy to fall into all-or-nothing thinking in these moments and judge ourselves. So see if any of these things sound familiar. "Ah, because I'm having this moment of resistance, the growth I'm trying is not working at all."

Or I'm clearly not good enough to make this work, or clearly there is not enough support in my relationship to make this happen and sustainable. Or I must not have really experienced any progress at all. Or for me, this new system or schedule is totally not worth it because it's having this negative effect.

All of these examples of all or nothing thinking couldn't be further from the truth. D&C forty-five fifty-seven, one of my favorite scriptures, reminds us that as wise men and wise women, we want to receive the truth, take the Holy Spirit for our guide, and not be deceived. This is an example of how a little bit of education and preparation and encouragement can help us to understand the truth of what's going on and discern what is truth and what is deception inside of us.

It helps so much to know that the resistance I was feeling here was just a law of nature, not something I was doing wrong. When you experience positive growth, you're going to also experience moments of resistance. For me, that showed up as fear and doubt. These feelings don't need to stick around, and they for sure don't need to lead.

I don't need to believe them or give place for them. I just need to hold them with curiosity and let them go. So this morning, as I became aware of what I was feeling in these G-forces, I accepted it as a normal part of nature, and it was easier for me to give space for it and just sit with it and hold it.

No shame, no guilt, no residual frustration. It didn't sabotage the light and the good in my day. In fact, it fueled me because I realized that the weight I was feeling was evidence that the changes I was making were working. They were moving me forward. I was experiencing that G-force, that growth force, because I'm moving to a higher orbit.

I'm guessing you want that movement too, and hopefully this little share will plant some seeds in you and help you understand some of the sensations, feelings, and thoughts that you may experience as you're working on your own positive changes and growth in your life and in your relationships So as September comes with its back to school season, if you want more support in your growth journey, in knowing how to push through some of the stuck points in your life and in your relationships, if you want some clarity in your identity and purpose, you might want to join one of our growth groups starting the 1st of September.

Research shows that it really helps propel our growth when we're a part of a community. This kind of group coaching is really effective at helping us see and make the changes that we desire in our lives. So go check out the offerings at growinthelight.com and know in the meantime that growth comes by small and simple things in the way we choose each day to live in the light, to love from the light, and to draw others to the light.