Yearning for Lasting Change in Your Life?
Time to Stir Up a New Recipe
You enter a therapist’s office because you want something to change in your life. You are sick and tired of feeling sick and tired! Most people find their way into therapy because they are struggling with their emotions, relationships, or unwanted behaviors. Certain therapeutic modalities, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), target these issues using practical strategies and techniques. As a counselor, I am drawn, however, to more in-depth, insight-oriented work with clients. I like to work at a “soul level.” My passion lies in untangling clients' patterns and teaching them how to love themselves better through the process of changing these patterns. One thing that I have noticed is that clients often crave more tangible change. Feeling better is wonderful, but behaving differently is a game-changer! Why does altering our behaviors pose such a challenge, especially in this day and age?
Understanding and changing your behaviors is all about becoming more aware of your emotions and thoughts.
Not so long ago, there were far fewer distractions. Becoming aware of your emotions and thoughts requires a deepening presence with yourself. Prior to the era of the smartphone, increasing your self-awareness could be incorporated easily into daily life. Simple practices such as taking notice of your emotions and thoughts as you walk through your day or acknowledging your cravings and unwanted behaviors were readily incorporated. While this was not easy work, it was quite doable. There wasn’t technology beckoning us to… read this article, watch this video, or connect with this person right now!
How often do you find your head in your phone, realizing that you have missed hearing your loved one speaking to you or not noticing the beautiful view right in front of your face? The distractions in our lives are enticing and addictive! You aren’t in a conundrum because you lack willpower or something is wrong with you. You actually just need a new and different recipe for change. Like a new recipe for a favorite dish, there are specific steps to follow, and when you make it your own, it is easy to recreate the delicious dish time and again.
Set your intention
“The secret to changing your life is in your intentions. Wishing, hoping, and goal setting cannot accomplish change without intention. What is needed is a shift from the inert energy of wanting to the active energy of doing and intention.”
— Wayne Dyer
Intention setting helps you to put all of your energy in the right direction. It sets you on a course. Imagine that you want to improve an important relationship in your life. Setting a goal might seem fitting, yet it might fail to energize or guide your actions effectively. You may come up with specific ideas, such as working to pause and take a breath before you speak to this individual. While it is a worthy idea, it requires continued self-reinforcement. Now imagine setting the intention of feeling a warm and loving attitude towards this particular person. The intention acts as a steady inner cue that naturally influences each behavior and emotion with love.
Finding your intention is very specific to you. Your higher self, your soul, the deepest parts of yourself, whatever you’d like to name it, knows what you truly value and the direction for your life. Ask yourself, “If I were to make this change from my highest self, what would that look like?” The answer becomes your aspirational goal or ideal and feeds your intention. Your aspirational ideas about how you want to live your life are essential to keep in mind. While the reality of your life might be a lot messier and harder to navigate than the ease with which your aspirational life speaks, it can serve as a guiding force.
Put practices into place
“It takes ten thousand hours to truly master anything. Time spent leads to experience; experience leads to proficiency; and the more proficient you are, the more valuable you’ll be.”
— Malcolm Gladwell
You can’t create change in your life without practicing. If you watch a yogi, a golfer, or a guitar player, practice is the key to their experience. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it is a process that shifts you into confidence and devotion towards yourself. Imagine that you want to curb your tendency to procrastinate at work, and the aspirational idea that you have, your intention, is that you work with a sense of flow and accomplish your tasks with ease and enthusiasm. With this intention in mind, you come up with some practices that help you “go with the flow.” For instance, you could initiate a daily yoga or tai chi practice. Alternatively, you might seek practices to help you experience a sense of accomplishment, such as dedicating time to cooking meals or engaging in jigsaw puzzles instead of finding yourself mindlessly scrolling on social media in the evenings. As you can see, the practices don’t relate directly to the outcome that you are seeking. The practices prepare the soil so that as you are asked to do work tasks over time, you will stop procrastinating, not out of force or willpower, but from somewhere deeper inside of yourself. You gain confidence from your practices and begin to understand your aspirational intention at the deepest level.
Accept the process with grace
“For grace is given not because we have done good works, but in order that we may be able to do them.”
— St. Augustine of Hippo
At an early age, we develop a part of our psyche that tells us how to stay safe. In Freudian terms, we call this the “superego.” In other psychological and spiritual frameworks, we consider this part of ourselves our “inner critic.” The inner critic becomes the biggest obstacle to change! Paradoxically, we often believe that we must recruit this part of ourselves when seeking change. Essentially, we attempt to shame and punish ourselves into change.
Being soft and loving with yourself in creating a life change is what is actually needed! Giving yourself grace and acknowledging that you aren’t seeking perfection, but rather improvement and movement make way for real progress. If you take the example of a professional athlete, grace does not look like soft affirmations and acceptance of poor performance. Grace, in the best athletes, looks like deep presence. They don’t beat themselves up about their last shot. They quickly leave the last shot behind them and focus on the present moment. Grace can be subtle in this way. And, when we are making life changes, such as improving relationships or changing a deeply ingrained behavior, grace might look more deliberate and tender.
We live in a constantly distracting environment. Numerous new and challenging obstacles exist that threaten real change in your life. Being deliberate in your path to create change is necessary and extremely useful! Use the ideas of intention setting, practice building, and graceful acceptance to guide your way. And then, like a recipe for your favorite dish, try the recipe out and then tweak it to match you. You will always have your answers and unique path; you just need to ask yourself the right questions and listen.
