Processes of growth and transformation are never pain free.
They require a letting go of outmoded ways of being, of old assumptions and old defenses. A living system learns, adapts and evolves by reorganizing itself.. (positive disintegration)

This process can be highly uncomfortable. As we open like a wound to the travail of the world , we are susceptible to new sensations and confusions..

[….]

Life systems evolve flexibility and intelligence, not by closing off from the environment and erecting walls of defense, but by opening ever wider to the currents of matter- energy and information. It is in this interaction that life systems grow, integrating and differentiating.
As life forms evolve in intelligence, they shed their armor and reach outward to an ever- wider interplay with the environment. They grow sensitive , vulnerable protuberances- ears, nose, eyeballs, lips, tongues, fingertips- the better to feel and respond, the better to connect in the web and weave it further!

(Notes from a book on ecopsychology )