What’s Actually Happening When Life Starts to Feel Unaligned

This morning I’m sitting relaxed, a touch bored I asked ChatGPT to tell me something interesting. Just a fun fact to pass the time, that I would be interested in.

And today, it told me this:

Apparently, our brains are most open to change during periods of transition … not when life is stable, but when something feels a little unsteady. A move. A relationship shift. A career pivot. A change in routine. A quiet internal “something doesn’t fit anymore” moment.

It turns out that during these phases, the brain loosens its old patterns. The stories we’ve been repeating, the habits we’ve been running on autopilot, the version of ourselves we’ve been maintaining, all of it becomes more flexible.

Which is kind of wild, because most of us are taught to fear those moments. To rush through them. To stabilize as quickly as possible. To get back to “normal.”

But what if those in-between seasons aren’t something to escape?

What if they’re actually when we’re most capable of choosing who we become next?

It made me think about how many people are quietly in this phase right now, maybe without realizing it. Feeling restless. Questioning things that used to feel fine. Wanting alignment, clarity, softness, growth… but not quite knowing how to name it.

Maybe those feelings aren’t random.

Maybe they’re signals.

Signals that the brain, and the self, are updating.

And maybe the smallest choices we make during these seasons matter more than we think. The thoughts we repeat. The standards we raise. The version of ourselves we start imagining, even casually.