Why Change Can Feel So Uncomfortable After Boarding School

There are moments when the intensity of our emotional response does not seem to match what is actually happening.

We are going on holiday.

Leaving for a workshop.

Moving house.

Changing therapist.

Starting something new.

Objectively, there may be very little to fear.

And yet something in the body becomes unsettled.

I noticed this in myself recently.

I was preparing to travel north for a workshop followed by a retreat. The day before leaving, I became aware of nervousness in my body.

It reminded me of something my wife used to notice.

Whenever I was preparing to go somewhere, particularly if I was travelling without her, she would sometimes look at me and say:

“Piers, you’re stressed.”

And I would respond:

“Am I?”

I often genuinely didn't realise.

I would simply become very busy.

Packing.

Checking.

Organising.

Making sure everything was done.

From the outside it looked like productivity.

But underneath it there could be fear.

Boarding school and the psychology of transitions

I had also been reading Nick Duffell and Thurstine Basset's Trauma, Abandonment & Privilege.

They describe something I recognise both personally and through my work with former boarders:

transitions can be unusually difficult.

Going away.

Coming home.

Ending something.

Beginning something.

Even something we actively want can trigger discomfort.

Why?

For a child who went to boarding school, transitions were rarely emotionally neutral.

Leaving home meant separation.

The end of the holidays meant returning to school.

Sunday evening could contain the knowledge that another goodbye was coming.

Over time, the nervous system can begin to associate change with separation.

Decades later, the circumstances may be entirely different.

But the body remembers patterns long after the conscious mind has forgotten them.

When the future stops us experiencing the present

One of the more painful consequences of this is that it can become difficult to enjoy what is happening now.

Imagine being on a beautiful holiday and already thinking:

“Soon I have to go back.”

Rather than being fully present with the sea, the mountains, the people or the experience, part of us is preparing for the ending.

This can become an extraordinarily subtle survival strategy.

If I never fully arrive, perhaps leaving will hurt less.

But the cost is significant.

We never quite inhabit our lives.

Notice the engine underneath the doing

So what can we do?

The first practice is extremely simple.

Pause.

Instead of immediately trying to solve the nervousness, notice it.

Where is it?

For me, I could feel it in my belly.

Then breathe.

Not to eliminate the sensation.

Simply to acknowledge it.

I spent around five minutes standing barefoot in the garden, breathing and feeling my feet against the earth.

What I find interesting is how easily fear can become the engine behind activity.

We do.

And do.

And do.

Everything looks productive.

But underneath the movement is:

“Something isn't safe.”

When we pause long enough to feel what is happening, we interrupt that automatic pattern.

What if the feeling is excitement?

There is another practice I have been experimenting with.

Instead of saying:

“I'm nervous.”

Try:

“I'm excited.”

The physical sensations of anxiety and excitement can be remarkably similar.

The heart speeds up.

Energy increases.

The body becomes activated.

Usually, when we feel anxious, we try to travel from:

high arousal → calm

We say:

“Calm down.”

“Relax.”

“Stop worrying.”

But sometimes another possibility is to remain with the energy while changing our relationship to it.

High-arousal anxiety becomes high-arousal excitement.

I don't have to eliminate the energy.

I can reinterpret it.

Boarding school and the suppression of excitement

I think there is another boarding school dimension here.

Many former boarders learned that becoming visibly excited wasn't particularly safe either.

You couldn't be too emotional.

Too enthusiastic.

Too upset.

Too frightened.

Too joyful.

The safest position was somewhere near the middle.

A kind of emotional flatline.

Don't show too much.

Don't give the other boys anything they can use against you.

And therefore, even excitement can later feel unfamiliar or dangerous.

Perhaps some of what we call anxiety is sometimes energy we never learned to welcome.

“I'm excited”

So before leaving for my workshop and retreat, I experimented with something different.

I noticed the nervousness.

I breathed.

And then I reminded myself:

I'm excited.

I'm going somewhere meaningful.

I'm going to meet interesting people.

I'm going to see friends.

I'm going on retreat.

Something new is happening.

The nervous system may still remember the frightened child preparing to leave home.

But the adult gets to tell a different story.

Learning to experience transitions differently

Healing does not necessarily mean that these responses disappear completely.

Sometimes it simply means recognising them earlier.

Instead of unconsciously being driven by the feeling, we become curious about it.

What is happening in my body?

What does this transition remind my nervous system of?

Am I actually unsafe—or is an old pattern being activated?

And perhaps:

Could some of this nervousness actually be excitement?

For former boarders, learning to navigate transitions differently can be surprisingly profound.

Because every time we move through change while remaining connected to ourselves, something new is being learned.

This time, leaving does not mean abandonment.

This time, change does not mean danger.

And this time, I am allowed to be excited about what comes next.

Watch the full 4-minute reflection here: