The Power of Love: Change vs. Transformation

Have you ever done all the right things to change your life… but still felt stuck? In this episode,Michelle Vande Hey explores the profound difference between quick-fix changes driven by shame and sustainable transformation rooted in love. Inspired by a powerful quote from Dr. Kobe Campbell, Michelle breaks down how love invites curiosity, compassion, and connection — while shame creates urgency, fear, and burnout.

Whether you’re navigating a life transition, questioning your identity, or feeling lost after prioritizing others for too long, this episode will guide you back to your center.

Stick around to the end for three journal prompts that will help you reflect, re-align, and move forward with confidence.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why shame might be holding you back from lasting change
  
  
• The difference between external change and internal transformation
  
  
• What sustainable growth looks and feels like
  
  
• How love, patience, and grace are essential for your becoming

Dr. Kobe Campbell IG Video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFpz7AJJ4uO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

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Transcript

 Shame will change you quickly. Love will transform you in a sustainable way.  Dr. Kobe Campbell.  Have you ever felt like you were doing all the right things to change your life, but something still felt a little off, or you felt a little stuck? Today, we're gonna dig into why that might be and how Love Not Shame is the key to lasting transformation.

This is not only key for your own growth and transformation, but for your family, your coworkers, your team, people around you.  Stick around to the end, 'cause I'm gonna give you three journal prompts to help you move forward with love and confidence    📍   after a lifetime of always prioritizing everyone else's needs over your own.

Do you feel like you don't know who you are anymore? You're moving into this next phase of your life, maybe going through a life transition, like kids getting older and moving out. Parents are aging and moving in. Your career might be changing. Maybe your partner relationships are changing. All of this change is happening, and you're saying to yourself, I'm lost.

Or Who am I? You are not alone. It is time to prioritize yourself and power your mission. It's time to love your life on purpose.  I'm Michelle Vande, hay certified holistic life coach and trauma sensitive yoga facilitator to mission-driven leaders around the world creating more impact without burning out.

Let's explore who you are and discover who you want to become because you are worth it. 

  

If you are new to my channel, I put out a new episode every two weeks on Tuesdays about rediscovering who you are so you can create long lasting sustainable impacts. So be sure to subscribe or follow so you don't miss an episode.    I shared a quote at the beginning, and I'm going to reshare it again, it's from an Instagram post that I saw from Dr.

Kobe Campbell. And if I'm able to, I'll put that video in the show notes here.  If not, reach out to me and I'll send it to you. One of the things she said in this video and the whole video is just, it's so, it's so good. And we're gonna, I'm gonna kind of be breaking it down a little bit here. But she said, shame will change you quickly.

Love will transform you in a sustainable way.  And so often we talk about change even in this group. , we talk about even being change makers and trying to create more change, but what often happens is we try to create change  through shame as opposed to allowing for love to transform us.

 Oftentimes change is that external thing. It's that thing that we can all see. So changing jobs, new habits, new routines, your appearance, your environment, all of those things can change. And those are all external things. Change can also be fast. It may even be reactive. Unfortunately, sometimes change is driven by fear.

Which creates this unnecessary urgency or shame,

and being driven by fear that is your conditioned self. I talk about this framework of your conditioned self and authentic self, or like I sometimes like to call it superwoman versus Wonder Woman. Is that when we are being driven by fear, we can still accomplish things, but it's oftentimes not aligned and it's not sustainable.

 Change can also feel like you're fixing something or trying to control something that's quote unquote wrong. So an example might be, I need to lose weight so people will accept me, versus I wanna feel energized and alive in my body.  See the difference there, the one we're shaming ourselves into changing, and the other, we're loving ourselves into transformation. 



Transformation, on the other hand, is rooted in the internal. Versus change being the external. So transformation can be a shift in beliefs, a shift in identity, your values, and even your self-worth.  And oftentimes we talk about your identity and your beliefs and that's what a lot of times my podcast is about, is shifting perspectives too.

And so it's this internal transformation that happens. Different things that have happened in history. Let's speak to big one was George Floyd's murder  and how that really got a lot of people, especially white folks like myself, to really rethink and realize, wow, all these things we've been hearing are actually true.

I wanted to create these external changes, but I had to create the internal shifts in my perspectives and beliefs first. So I was reading books, I was listening to different people. I was putting myself in different environments so I could have this internal transformation. So that for number one, when the change did happen, it was something that came from integrity and it wasn't just for show.

And that it was something that I could sustain.  And so that's where these internal shifts, that transformation. Transformation also requires time.  So we are in a society, we've been in a society for so long that we want things now better and  faster,  we have overnight shipping from Amazon and all of those things.

Have consequences as well. We're not gonna go into that but  the transformation requires time. So that also requires patience and also requires grace for yourself, forgiveness, that it's not going to be perfect. And that it's something that is not linear necessarily either.

And transformation is often invisible at first, but it creates this sustainable growth. So an example is healing your relationship with your body and learning to love yourself unconditionally.

Change can happen in a moment. Transformation, it unfolds over time. Shame doesn't sustain us. And why is that? Because shame tells us you're not enough that you have to change.  It creates this unnecessary urgency. It comes from a place of fear, and it often leads to burnout or self abandonment.

It leads to us silencing ourselves to protect the comfort of those around us, or silencing ourselves to protect the status quo .  Colonialism, patriarchy, all of these things that aren't good for anyone really.   That's what Shame does. I just had my, when stories talk premier last week and the feedback I'm getting from it is  really amazing and powerful  one of the recurring messages was this silencing ourselves to protect the comfort of those around us. And that I don't want you to feel like you have to do that anymore.

So that's what shame does,  that tells you you're not enough. You lead with fear and. It makes you silence yourself.  It makes it feel like it's not safe for you to be yourself.  Love on the other hand, invites curiosity. It invites compassion, and it invites connection. It says you are worthy right now and  you deserve to grow into more of who you truly are or rediscover who you want to become. 

That was the title of my When Stories Talk is Beyond Binary, breaking the Silence. So I talk a little bit throughout that as well want you to think of it this way. Shame may get you to run a mile. Love on the  other hand, will get you to run a marathon with joy.

 Transformation is like the season's happening, especially if you're, in the Midwest or somewhere where there's four seasons or you can even think about it as seeds.  They start growing underground, and the transformation is unseen.  Before we see the change above the ground, the transformation is happening under the ground  right now.

It is spring and things are blooming,  but the change didn't happen. When we saw it,  the change was already happening because of the transformation that had been happening  for weeks and months prior to that. That's what I want you to think about.

We can easily pull the weeds, we can get rid of the dandelions, we can pull them,  and that's like that instant change. But they're gonna grow back anyways, right? Because of the transformation that's happening underground.

That change that we see the bloom, it seems like it just happens overnight, doesn't it? The change seems to happen overnight, but it really doesn't. It's because of the transformation that's been happening underground.  And when Dr. Colby Campbell was talking about this, in that video, she referenced the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly, and that the transformation is happening inside that little chrysalis.

We can't see it. We can't see that transformation happening. We see the caterpillar, we see the chrysalis form, and then we see the butterfly emerge.  We don't see the transformation that happens. And so that's the sustainable change.  And if we try to  help the butterfly out and try and break it open when we see it wiggling around, because we want that change to happen faster, we want the transformation to happen faster.

What ends up happening is a butterfly isn't able to fly because they don't grow that strength in their wings to bust out of that shell of transformation.   That's super important too, is that we can't rush it. We're in such a rushing society, it's so important to allow the process to happen.

Transformation offers us an opportunity to slow down. To trust the process and to stay connected to your why.  That's why I often talk about our why and why going five layers deep is so important, and that when you have a burning driving desire, why you are willing to trust the process. Not, I'm not saying you're not gonna wanna quit or

give up along the process and maybe you make a dramatic shift and change, and that's okay too.  But when we can trust that process and allow it to be slow,  it becomes more sustainable. And like I said before, transformation isn't linear. There's moments of regression. There's moments of rest.

There's moments of reflection. Healing and transformation require a safe  and a loving environment.

So when we're yelling at people or when we think we need to, , be physical or whatever, that's not a safe or loving environment and that can get people to change, but it's not gonna transform people. So.

When we allow ourselves to be nurtured instead of pushed, we begin to unfold instead of unravel. And when we're making these mindset shifts, these belief shifts, these identity shifts, it often requires some curiosity, community  and connection. That's one of the reasons why I.  Created the Love Your Life on Purpose community.

You are welcome to join. It's a free community full of folks just like you that are wanting to make connections, who are willing to transform through love and not change through shame.  And as a bonus, once you join the group, you'll receive my self-care cheat sheet, which is 20 self-care habits that you can do in five minutes or less.

So go do love your life on purpose.com, or you can search on Facebook, love Your Life on Purpose, and join the Facebook group.

 We talked about, the importance of shifting from trying to change and focusing more on transformation and the differences. So now I'm gonna give you three journal prompts to help you to do some reflection and help you to move forward after this episode. Number one,  where in your life are you seeking change?

That might actually be a call for transformation. And then what would it look like  to love yourself through this instead of shaming yourself in to change? 

What would it look like to love yourself through this season instead of shaming yourself in to change? 

 And then the last question for you to reflect on what. Do I have in place or need in place to be able to focus on my transformation?  It may be a Facebook group.  There might be some things you can do on your own and then some things you need support with.   I want to leave you with this. May you be transformed by love and not changed by shame may your becoming be rooted in grace.   If you enjoyed this episode, one of the best ways you can do to support me and my work is to share this episode with someone you think needs to hear it. 

Two, you could share this on social media and tag me, or three, you can give me a five star review and or subscribe or follow depending on where you're watching or listening.    📍  Remember to be gentle with yourself. You are not broken. You are becoming and you are worth it.