People change for two reasons:
- One is emotional: They are in too much pain, which makes it unsustainable to keep going this way
- One is rational, and can turn into emotional: They realize they’ll look back in 30 years and wonder who lived their life
Both are not enough to change, but at least one is necessary. Deep, self-sustaining, genuine change is not (just) about developing new habits — this is helpful to live a better life, but doesn’t have a long-lasting impact if it’s not supported by valid reasons.
Authentic change requires making a bet with yourself: I go out to find something, but I don’t know what that is. I only know I can’t stay here any longer.
By getting to know yourself you don’t always know who you’ll find, and how (or if) these new parts will coexist with the ones you know already. Maybe you’ll even have to say goodbye to some you are quite attached to.
The point is: you don’t know what you’ll find when you start walking the on the road of self-discovery. This is why so many times clients seek help with partial requests and partial premises. And this makes our range of action more narrow. They ask to change something specific about their behavior, and they indicate where we can and cannot look. Often, their parents have been “amazing”, their relationship only needs some adjustments, their life is fine as it is except for that thing they want to change. That thing is seemingly small, but takes up all the space, and we inevitably have to look elsewhere to find out its role in their life.
Accepting we have to take a broader look in order to attain real change (not of that thing, but of our unhappiness) is what takes the longest. It demands coming to terms with the fact that their request to fix a part is not enough and we have to question the whole.
Questioning the whole is tough. It’s an existential matter before being a clinical one, it has to do with questioning the meaning of life (living for others? living for yourself? living for belonging, freedom, power, acceptance?) and the sense of identity, values, purpose. We get very defensive toward anything that could contradict our ideas of the world and ourselves. We become rigid, unreasonable, terrified at times. And we might decide the paved road is good enough, because the risk is too high. This might happen over and over, and it’ll become harder to accept we have veered again, despite knowing how miserable that road makes us. It’s important to remember, in these moments, that we are not silly, lazy, or self-sabotaging. We are simply doing what we do best: protect ourselves.
We might have to tell ourselves over and over what we are losing by walking on a comfortable road, but the truth is we will choose the alternative when we’ll realize it’s not that comfortable anymore.
“I am exasperated with myself” a client might say.
”Good” I reply. That’s where change begins.
— The image is Rossano, Calabria by Escher (1931)
Empatherapy 