by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
When You Grow, Not Everyone Can Follow: Old Roles & Growing Into REALNESS
There’s a strange phenomenon that I’ve witnessed happening again and again when you start growing more REAL.
It goes a bit like this:
At first – when you start to shift from unreal to real – it feels like expansion and so things begin to ‘click’, outdated patterns loosen, and you start to feel more aligned, more true, and, well, more…’You‘.
Everything starts to feel like there’s a real sense of momentum – almost as though everything is finally working with you and things are starting to move in the right direction.
But the, suddenly, it happens again…RESISTANCE – not just internally but externally too:
People around you start to react to your realness as though there’s something ‘wrong’ with it (which there can’t be because real just is what it is).
If you’re not aware of what’s really happening when you reach this stage, then it can feel confusing or even destabilising.
You might start questioning yourself:
“Am I doing something wrong?”
“Why is everyone reacting like this to me?”
“Have I changed in a ‘bad‘ way?”
This article is about the deeper truth which is that when you start becoming more real, you don’t just change yourself – you also change the system you’re part of.
And systems don’t always like change.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Old Roles & Realness: What We'll Cover in This Article
- When You Grow, Not Everyone Can Follow: Old Roles & Growing Into REALNESS
- The Invisible Contract: How Old Roles Keep Systems Stable
- The People Pleaser Example: When Growth Triggers Pushback
- Why People Try to Pull You Back Into Old Roles
- A Simple but Powerful Truth About Roles
- Why Your Growth Feels Threatening to Others
- It’s Not Personal – It’s Structural
- Staying Real in the Face of Old Roles: Awareness, Acceptance, Action
- The Deeper Opportunity Hidden in the Resistance
- The Final Word: Old Roles & Realness
The Invisible Contract: How Old Roles Keep Systems Stable
One of the most important things to understand about human beings and human relationships is this:
People don’t just relate to each other as individuals – they relate through roles.
Roles can basically be defined as the invisible contracts that hold relationships together and they’re often unconscious but incredibly powerful.
They literally pop up in all areas of human life – families, friendships, workplaces, cultures – and they create a kind of balance or homeostasis that brings a kind of ‘order’ to the surface of things.
It’s almost like everybody gets to play the ‘role’ of a different piece of the whole puzzle that keeps the system moving in a familiar and managable way:
Someone is “the Strong One”, someone else is “the Funny One”, another person gets to be “the Problem”, but that’s okay because somebody else can be the “the Rescuer”, and they can all look up to the “the Achiever” who always gets everything ‘right’.
What’s important to know is that none of these roles are random:
They all form as adaptations to emotional environments as a way of avoiding shame, gaining approval, or maintain a sense of safety.
This can be a ‘good’ thing in the short-term but, over time, these kinds of roles can become limiting because they create a kind of frozen identity (ego).
This is where things can become complicated between people because:
Roles are dependent on other roles.
What this means is that the identities of people in a given ‘system’ (group of people, for the sake of simplicity) are interdependent and so if one person starts changing and growing REAL then it can affect the identities of everybody else involved – whether they’re ready for it or not.
In short, a system only ‘works’ if the roles within it stay consistent and so if one person steps up and shifts into something more real, then the whole structure is challenged to become more real too.
The People Pleaser Example: When Growth Triggers Pushback
Let’s take a really common example of how this story unfolds for a lot of people:
Imagine someone growing up in an environment where love felt conditional instead of something that was unconditional and freely given – perhaps they learned early on that expressing their true needs wasn’t safe or that their value came from being agreeable all the time.
The consequence of this was that, over time, they internalised a lot of shame and so to cope they stepped into the role of the People Pleaser.
This role helped them survive, helped them maintain connection (even if it wasn’t necessarily the realest connection), and helped them to avoid conflict and rejection.
That might all sound great but it came with a cost:
By hiding behind the People Pleaser role as a kind of mask, they lost touch with real emotions, real desires, and real boundaries – ultimately becoming fragmented by splitting off ‘parts’ of themselves into the shadow self in order to maintain the role.
Eventually, they start to wake up to the brick walls that they keep hitting because of this role and so they start to do inner work, start dissolving shame, and begin recognising their own needs by practising saying no and refusing to keep overextending themselves.
In short, they start stepping out of the People Pleaser role and begin to feel more alive, more grounded, more authentic, and even start to build some real momentum in their lives – for perhaps the first time ever, they’re actually flowing with life rather than forcing themselves to perform a role.
Everything seems to be going so well and they have a whole new lust for life until…BOOM!
Someone close to them says something along the lines of:
“You’ve changed”.
“You’re not the same any more.”
Or:
“I feel like I don’t know you these days”.
Sometimes it’s said with frustration, sometimes with genuine concern, or sometimes even on an attempt to send you on a guilt trip but – underneath it – there’s the same unspoken message:
“Go back to who you were”.
This is just a sign that your growth has disrupted the system and not everyone is ready for that disruption.
Why People Try to Pull You Back Into Old Roles
When someone starts stepping out of a role, it creates tension in the system because roles don’t exist in isolation – they exist in relation to other roles.
What this means is that if one person stops being the People Pleaser (or any other role), then the others sharing the system with them may feel uncomfortable and have their own emotional ‘stuff’ triggered because they’ve grown used to that role (and who they can be in relation to it).
For example:
-If one person stops being the Victim, someone else might lose their sense of being the Rescuer.
-If the Rock of the family starts showing vulnerability, it may trigger others who rely on emotional avoidance.
-If the Shining Star stops performing, it can destabilise those who depended on their success for validation.
-Etc. etc. etc.
In all cases, the system resists change because change introduces uncertainty and the ego doesn’t like uncertainty (as it may bring reality back into the equation and the ego is the opposite of reality).
When the ego feels this kind of systemic threat, it tries to restore balance – not always consciously but through subtle and not so subtle forms of pressure like guilt-tripping, expressing disapproval, withdrawal of attention, or subtle like “You’re not like you used to be” (as though we’re supposed to stay the ‘same’ our whole lives long).
These attempts to pull you back into an old role aren’t always malicious (in fact, most of the time they’re not) – they’re adaptive as people try to maintain their own internal equilibrium based on their own inner emotional ‘stuff’ (shame, guilt, and/or trauma for most people).
The short version is that if you change, it forces others to look at themselves and that’s not always something people are ready to do.
A Simple but Powerful Truth About Roles
Here’s the rule that explains pretty much everything we’re talking about:
Roles are always dependent on other roles.
This means that if one person steps out of their role, it challenges the structure of the whole system – not because anything is ‘wrong’ but because roles are interconnected agreements within the system as a whole and systems resist change because change exposes the illusion that the system is built upon.
At a deeper level, roles are not who we are in our realness – they’re just functions and temporary adaptations as an extension of the ways we’ve learned to navigate emotional landscapes.
They’re are not the full expression of a human being but just fragments that we identify with in order to survive.
Over time, those fragments can begin to feel like a prison which is why it’s worth rocking the boat sometimes and growing real.
Why Your Growth Feels Threatening to Others
When someone begins to move toward wholeness, they stop performing their role as rigidly and so they start becoming more integrated, more honest with themselves and others, but also more unpredictable.
(Another reason the ego likes everybody to be playing roles is because roles come with predictable boundaries which allows the ego to keep controlling things and keep shame at bay).
This can understandably be deeply unsettling for others because suddenly:
- The People Pleaser says “no”.
- The Rock shows emotion.
- The Victim takes responsibility.
- The Achiever seeks meaning over results.
The end result of this is that it creates a mirror of where everybody else can step up and transform themselves in a real way.
Instead of facing what’s reflected in this mirror, the system tries to pull you back into your old identity – not because you’re doing something ‘wrong’ but because your growth is disrupting the illusion that others are holding onto.
It’s Not Personal – It’s Structural
One thing that’s really important to understand:
This isn’t about people being bad or manipulative – it’s just the reality of how human systems function.
People are often operating from their own unconscious patterns and being driven by their own shame, their fears, and their own need for stability.
The bottom line is that when someone grows, it can feel like instability to others and so they react in the only way they know how:
By trying to restore the old dynamic.
This is why it’s so important not to take it personally because if you do, you risk collapsing back into your old role just to maintain connection and then you’ll end up being ‘stuck’ again.
This is a trap that a lot of people fall into because they can’t push through this pull-back stage from the system:
They begin to grow… and then retreat…they taste freedom… and then return to the cage.
Not because they want to but because the pressure to give into the unreal is stronger than they’re desire to grow real.
Staying Real in the Face of Old Roles: Awareness, Acceptance, Action
So how do you navigate all of this and stay aligned with your growth without being pulled back into old roles and patterns?
You can approach it through the three simple but powerful principles that I structure my coaching containers around when working with clients:
Awareness, Acceptance, and Action.
1. Awareness: See What’s Really Happening
The first step is to become AWARE of the dynamics at play:
When someone reacts to your growth, don’t immediately assume something is ‘wrong’ with you (or them) – instead, pause, observe, and ask yourself:
- “Are they trying to pull me back into an old role?”
- “What role did I play in this dynamic before?”
- “Is this reaction about me or about their role in the system?”
Awareness creates space and this space gives you choice about how to show up and keep moving forward.
2. Acceptance: Own Your Direction
The next step is ACCEPTANCE – not of the old pattern but of your new direction – this means getting clear on what you actually want:
What is real for you NOW?
(Not what you’re ‘supposed’ to want because of what the role dictates).
Acceptance also means recognising that discomfort is part of growth:
When you stop people-pleasing, some people may not like it; when you stop performing, some people may withdraw; when you stop playing small, some people may resist.
All of these things are okay because their reactions aren’t your responsibility.
(That doesn’t mean that you upset people on purpose – just that it can be a by-product of growing real sometimes).
3. Action: Keep Acting Like the Real You
Finally, comes ACTION which is where most people fall off:
They become aware and get an understanding of what’s happening but then they start to hesitate, soften, and compromise as the old role starts to pull them back into old patterns.
The truth is that real change requires consistency and so you need to train yourself to continue acting from your realness even when it’s uncomfortable or when others when others resist and it seems easier to just give up and go back to what’s familiar.
Being consistent like this doesn’t mean being aggressive or dismissive – it just means staying GROUNDED.
You are not here to take on somebody else’s emotional garbage – you’re here to show up and be REAL.
If you want to go deeper into your realness then check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace.
The Deeper Opportunity Hidden in the Resistance
Here’s an important reframe for all of this ‘stuff’:
The resistance you face is not just an obstacle – it’s also an opportunity.
It’s an opportunity because it shows that the changes you’re going through as you do the ‘inner work’ are REAL because if no one reacted to your growth, it might not be as significant as you think.
When people do react, it means something is actually shifting – not just in you but in the system around you and that’s a sign that you’re moving in the right direction.
The Final Word: Old Roles & Realness
At the deepest level, the journey into realness is about realising that you’re so much more than just a ‘role:
You are not the People Pleaser, the Victim, the Rock, the Shining Star, or anything else – these might be roles you’ve played at some stage in your life but they’re not your essence.
As you step into realness, you begin to dissolve these identities and this might disrupt the systems around you but that’s part of the process because realness doesn’t just transform the individual but also the community around them.
If people try to pull you back then don’t panic, shrink, or abandon yourself – just remember the truth:
You’re not here to stay the ‘same’ (as if that’s even possible) – you’re here to to become REAL.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to work on stepping into your realness then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you to start taking action that’s aligned with your potential – not just the roles you’re identifying with.
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