Reid Stell Counseling
Interdependency is Shared Humanity
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Ready to Change

3/11/2015

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Are you ready, Freddy? Ready to change? Real, personal change? It's okay if you're not. (Not that you asked my permission.) If it's okay with you then that's fine. If it's not okay with you then that's fine too—either way. It's neither good nor bad if you're not ready. It just is. It's normal. It's natural. Being ready to change is a choice—either conscious or unconscious—and everything we do is for a reason.

The way I see it, not being ready for a difficult change is not necessarily evidence of a neurosis. And it's not just a way to give yourself an excuse to continue counterproductive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. True, it's partly about fear of the unknown (even if you think an unknown future would be better than a known present), but it's mainly just the way a lot of us approach self-improvement: It's actually part of the change process!

Talking about change is something we do in group every Wednesday. Actually, all of the talking we do, and all of the listening, is about nothing but change. Changes we have made ourselves, changes we'd like to make, changes we think we can't make happen. It's all about change. One thing we haven't talked about recently is what stops us from changing more or faster. Could it be as simple as whether we're ready or not?

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The Transtheoretical Model is an approach to intentional self-change developed by Drs. James O. Prochaska Carlo DiClemente in 1983. It was the first model to popularized the phrase, "Stages of Change." Shown below in a simplified flow chart, the idea is that we move from not thinking about change through a progression of thoughts leading to actions that eventually facilitate the differences we want to manifest in our lives.

Wherever you are on the change spectrum, whether you embrace change and are used to the discomfort associated with new, possibly better ways to be, it's interesting to examine the way that most of us eventually get to important shifts. Can you spot where on this diagram you can place yourself in your personal growth as it relates to symptoms or relationships or activities that you're working on? If you can see where you are, you can see where you've been and where you're going. It's like an internal road map.

But the mapping of our lives can be very circular. Once we've done something big or hard or great or significant, there's always another achievement out there. The stronger we get, the more we can lift. Baby steps might seem impossible to a one-month-old baby, but not to an 18-month-old. Controlling anxiety 5% better than you did last month might seem like a huge baby step if you haven't done it—if you haven't learned or put into practice some ways to make that happen.

In group last night, for example, we talked about ways to lower anxiety. Among those tips, tricks, and techniques were mindfulness meditation, guided meditation (using Youtube clips), focused breathing, body scanning, journaling, writing down a worry list so we can sleep, thought examination, and gratitude. Committing to trying one or more of these ideas can easily make a 5% improvement very doable. And trying these new ways to approach unwanted moods and feelings seems like a sensible alternative to our traditional, old, or stuck ways of doing business. If you're ready to leave anxiety in the category of rare feelings, you're moving forward on your change map.
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In future meetings, we'll check in with each other regarding where we are, change-wise, and we'll continue to share the ways that have worked for us when it comes to changing what isn't working. We don't have control over the slings and arrows that befall us from external sources, but no one but we have control over our reactions to all that "out there" stuff. Humans are the most adaptable creatures on the planet. It's ironic that, on the other hand, we are so famous for finding ways to postpone our amazing adaptability.

But don't dismay. Now you know it's all part of a process. And the progress we chose to make in our process can be as fast as we like. I would tell you that there's no time to lose, but I would be wrong. We have all the time in the world. Whether we lose the time at hand, seize it, or forget to notice it, it's there. Or rather, it's here. In this moment.
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Loss of Innocense

3/4/2015

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All losses are losses of innocence. Think back on all your losses. Or on your first one. Often, when I ask someone to recall their oldest memory, it is a painful one. It is about an injustice, or an injury, or a cruel realization; it is some kind of loss.

The process of becoming an adult (whatever that might mean to you) is a painful one. Adulthood is a painful state to find yourself in if you are not ready. And staying a child is also painful. Pain, pain, at every turn. I believe this pain is the knowing we are giving something up that we would rather keep to get something that is scary. Something that, once gone, can not be replaced. Some forms of innocence cannot serve us as adults. We would be left too vulnerable in a world full of adults. But others of our innocent traits keep us from becoming too hardened. It's a delicate balance.

Innocence is essential to our psychological health throughout the life span. From infancy onward, innocence provides the foundation for our natural openness to the world, to other beings, to cooperative relationships, to new life experiences, to deep learning and creativity. Innocence is akin to what Buddhists call "beginner's mind"; it allows us to see with fresh eyes, respond with a young heart, act without guile or deception, love like we've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and celebrate the joy of existence. Innocence is the newness...that, regardless of our age or stage, can blossom all through out lives.

Bill Plotkin,
Nature and the Human Soul
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Let's end with Dickinson, that great existential philosopher who chose to share very little of her wisdom with a violent world while she was alive. Below is one of the 1800 poems she wrote about love, control, self-awareness, and innocence lost. I think she is advising us to continually redirect our attention inward so that we may reacquaint ourselves with our only true home: that shining source of all power we call the Self.
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Emily Dickinson

A loss of something ever felt I--
The first that I could recollect
Bereft I was—of what I knew not
Too young that any should suspect

A Mourner walked among the children
I notwithstanding went about
As one bemoaning a Dominion
Itself the only Prince cast out--

Elder, Today, a session wiser
And fainter, too, as Wiseness is--
I find myself still softly searching
For my Delinquent Palaces--

And a Suspicion, like a Finger
Touches my Forehead now and then
That I am looking oppositely
For the site of the Kingdom of Heaven--

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    Author

    For three years
    I led a therapy group
    for anxiety and depression. These are my
    imperfect recollections
    of those meetings
    with some of the most influential people
    in my life.
    While maintaining confidentiality,
    I processed those
    shared experiences

    and recorded my impressions.
    ​
    ​Disclaimer: This blog does not create a therapeutic relationship ans is non-interactive.

    RS

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