Pain is the measure of our resistance to change

I'm not sure I can answer your question directly or simply. But it does remind me of two facts - applicable to all people, not just autistics - that have helped me understand myself:

Our brains could interpret pretty much anything as pain. "Painful emotions" are a good example of this. So, anything that we think of as unpleasant could be interpreted as painful.

Change does come with a literal cost to our bodies. Perhaps, if the costs are great enough, this could be interpreted as painful. E.g. My arm is used to lifting a pen with no pain. But if I changed that pen to a very heavy weight without any strength training, I am pretty sure I'd experience pain!

Going back to your quote, I believe our minds' 'resistance to change' is due to estimating the cost of the change in advance and realising that it may be great.

However, one thing I don't like about this quote is it could be interpreted that experiencing pain would be a normal part of change, that it's "only" our resistance, nothing more. I don't believe that pain should be ignored, whether it is physical or emotional pain. Pain is our bodies' and minds' way of telling us something. We could still make the change in question, but better would be to explore what the pain is telling us and to see if there is a way to make the change with no pain involved. If there is an option to experience zero pain then it is worth exploring. Discomfort may be experienced, but not pain. Even in the case of people who have a malfunction with their ability to sense pain (sensing it too much or too little), I would say this would require an even more careful approach since the signals are not so accurate. E.g. Small, incremental change over time may be better than a sudden, huge change - both could successfully reach the same end goal, but the former may achieve zero pain.

I'm not sure I can answer your question directly or simply. But it does remind me of two facts - applicable to all people, not just autistics - that have helped me understand myself:

Our brains could interpret pretty much anything as pain. "Painful emotions" are a good example of this. So, anything that we think of as unpleasant could be interpreted as painful.

Change does come with a literal cost to our bodies. Perhaps, if the costs are great enough, this could be interpreted as painful. E.g. My arm is used to lifting a pen with no pain. But if I changed that pen to a very heavy weight without any strength training, I am pretty sure I'd experience pain!

Going back to your quote, I believe our minds' 'resistance to change' is due to estimating the cost of the change in advance and realising that it may be great.

However, one thing I don't like about this quote is it could be interpreted that experiencing pain would be a normal part of change, that it's "only" our resistance, nothing more. I don't believe that pain should be ignored, whether it is physical or emotional pain. Pain is our bodies' and minds' way of telling us something. We could still make the change in question, but better would be to explore what the pain is telling us and to see if there is a way to make the change with no pain involved. If there is an option to experience zero pain then it is worth exploring. Discomfort may be experienced, but not pain. Even in the case of people who have a malfunction with their ability to sense pain (sensing it too much or too little), I would say this would require an even more careful approach since the signals are not so accurate. E.g. Small, incremental change over time may be better than a sudden, huge change - both could successfully reach the same end goal, but the former may achieve zero pain.