thePsyche.org

Change Your Approach and Change Your Life

Staff — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:37:43 +0000

For those of us that want to be implementing change in our lives, and real change, a familiar cycle may be becoming apparent. Whatever it is we wish to alter in our lives inevitably comes back to bite us, and, depressed, we find ourselves back where we started from. However, if we wish to alter our lives and our approaches, we first need a smarter change management process.

The Five Stages of Real Self Change

Usually we have only two states in our minds - our problematic state, and our “cured”, “perfect” or “improved” state. This simplistic model means we will forever be going between the two poles. Worse still, the more that our approach to change fails, the more tired we grow trying to alter it, after meeting with repeated failure.

What we need is a more nuanced and realistic model of change - and for this we have the Five Stages of Change model.

The Pre-Contemplative Stage

Not really a stage, this is at least the state many of us find ourselves in. We don’t think, or much less care, about the particular situation we are in. Perhaps the negative ramifications of our personality or responses haven’t occurred yet. In any effect, with the onset of difficulties this “stage” quickly moves to Stage 1.

Stage 1. Contemplation

In the first stage of effective change, we start to think it would be good to work on a particular issue in our lives. You may not think dramatically “I have to change my life” at this point, but you will be recognizing potential problems — and perhaps potential things you wish were different. For instance, you might decide you want to smoke less, be less obsessive, or to spend less time procrastinating. Or whatever personal attribute you wish was different.

Being a Balanced Person

Staff — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:33:28 +0000

This is great advice. You might have your own categories, but the “four rooms” mentioned all seem fundamental.

A Seed Metaphor For Change

Staff — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:53:32 +0000

I would like to share with you a metaphor that can be used to change the way you think about healing and personal growth. Just thinking about yourself under the umbrella of a new framework may be enough to shift years of difficulty and obstacles.

In the West, it is common to position ourselves and our problems in any number of cultural frameworks. These may be - in no particular order:

Sin (I am a sinful person, or I have sinned)
Class and politics (it is all against me because the system is set up that way)
Personality types (I am too weak/ sensitive/ anti-rational, etc).
Personality disorders (I am depressive, obsessive, anxious, compulsive).

Instead of the usual framework you use to consider your current mental difficulties, consider a different one - the one of the tree seed.

Consider the seed for a very big tree, for instance, an oak, pine or elm tree. All of the information to make a great tree lies inherent in that seed. Given the right conditions - light, fresh soil, and water - the seed will have no choice but to grow into the great tree it was born to become.

Now consider that that acorn - or that seed - falls into rocky and poor soil. Its roots go in, but it finds very little earth in which to nourish itself. It finds its position a little like a bonsai - constricted, it grows small, it looks unhealthy and distorted, and is weak from not having the proper supports.