Plato once presented an allegory that rocked the psychology and philosophy world. He asked people to imagine being prisoners chained inside a cave, chained in such a way that the only thing they could see were shadows cast on a wall. He suggested that if you were chained there long enough, and if all you ever knew was the world of the cave, you would believe that the shadows were reality.

But if you were to free yourself from your chains and step outside the cave, you would come to see that the shadows you once saw were merely distortions of reality, caused by the light outside the cave.

The truth is, we are all born in a cave. We all see reality through the lens we were born into. Perhaps you grew up in a home with divorced parents, and your view of reality was shaped by that experience. Or maybe you grew up in a home where your parents stayed together but argued constantly. Can you see how those two people might develop very different lenses of reality?

We all have these lenses—until we don’t. At some point in our lives, we begin to question our reality. We ask ourselves why we do the things we do. And when that happens, we get the chance to see these lenses for what they really are.

In most cases, these lenses are beliefs about yourself and the world around you that were designed to keep you safe within the reality you were born into. The child of divorced parents might believe they are on their own. The child of constantly arguing parents might believe they need to mediate or keep the peace.

Do you see how your entire personality could be built on these ideas? How your view of the world might be nothing more than the shadow of the cave you were born into?

Many texts like to call this a “prison,” but I don’t think that’s the right word. You have the power to walk out of the cave at any time. The only thing keeping you in the cave is you. I think a better word is “home” or “base.” It’s your default state, the place you run back to in order to feel safe.

Recently, I spent some time using ChatGPT in a therapist-like role. That wasn’t my intention at first, but as I shared more details about my life, I noticed the insights it gave me were becoming increasingly accurate.

One of the things I discovered through this process is that my “cave” is isolation, independence, and individuality. That cave was built from the way I was raised. I was always told to sit down, be quiet, and stay out of the way. I was told my view of reality was wrong and that my sense of who I was wasn’t good enough. I also learned that trusting people leads to heartache.

All of this combined to create a baseline in my nervous system. When something threatens that baseline, I lose control. That’s the basis of addiction. Internally, I’m programmed not to be seen, because being seen means being exposed, punished, or judged.

I also realized that the few times I experienced intrusive suicidal thoughts—thoughts of suicide even when I didn’t want to die—it was because I was overloaded by things that attacked my identity.

So now I’m on the road to rewiring or reprogramming some of those limited core responses. It’s like leaving the cave for the first time. Inside the cave, the shadows are comfortable and familiar. Outside the cave, the light is bright and blinding. Seeing reality for the first time can be disorienting.

It reminds me of the scene in The Matrix when Neo first wakes up. He asks Morpheus, “Why do my eyes hurt?”

Morpheus responds, “Because you’ve never used them.”

The New Year is a great time to start a journey like this. Many people make resolutions about what they want to change, but most of us don’t take the time to think about how we’ll make those changes. Ultimately, change requires discipline. You have to commit to it and do what’s necessary every day to stay on the new path you’ve chosen.

That said, change is easier when you’re not white-knuckling your way through it. For example, if your goal is to lose weight, deciding to eat fewer calories seems like the obvious solution. But if it were really that simple, you’d have done it already. It can be helpful to explore why you reach for certain foods in the first place.

I had an interesting realization about this several years ago. There are many reasons we do what we do, but I noticed a phrase I often used with my kids during meals. At the end, I’d ask, “Did you get your belly full?”

That’s a phrase I’d heard my whole life, and it never occurred to me to question it. It was something my mom always said, so it became another shadow on the cave wall. One day, though, it hit me: the point of a meal isn’t to eat until you’re full, is it? Where did that idea come from?

When I reflected on it, I remembered my mom telling me that when she was growing up, there was often no food in the house. Her father had died, and her mother struggled with alcoholism. I imagine that when she did get food, her survival instinct was to eat as much as possible, not knowing when food would be available again.

Perhaps that’s what fueled her need to make sure we ate until we were full. Once I realized that, I started changing how I phrased the question. Instead of asking, “Are you full?” I began asking, “Did you get enough to eat?”

Many of our behaviors stem from small things like this—things our parents taught us based on their own experiences and what their parents taught them. It’s a powerful cycle, but it doesn’t mean you have to continue it. You can be the one to break it, if you have the courage to look inward.

So this year, when you’re ready to make a change, ask yourself whether there are thoughts or beliefs fueling the behavior you want to change. Perhaps there’s a new perspective you could adopt—one that makes the shift a little easier.

The cave is familiar, but familiarity is not the same as truth. Growth begins the moment you stop mistaking comfort for safety. You don’t have to change everything at once. Just take one step forward. Ask one honest question. Challenge one old belief. That’s how real change happens. And once you start seeing clearly, you’ll never want to go back to the shadows.