If I hear another person sitting in my office say, “I can’t change!” or “He (or she) will never change!” I am going to scream.
No, I won’t scream. Don’t worry. But I do not get how people can make statements that are directly against everything science has shown. Of course we change.
We also learn. We grow.
What you really mean when you say that you can’t change is that you don’t want to.
Fair enough. That is at least an honest statement. But then what are you doing in my office?!
Oh, oh, I get it. You can’t (don’t want to) change, but you want to change HER! Ha. I see.
No, I don’t see. People “can’t” change, so how can she?
You are sighing. “You’re right, Dr. Deb. She can’t change either. I don’t know why I’m here. I guess I’m depressed about the whole thing.”
Uh-uh. You’re not allowed to be depressed either; that’s not living a “good life.” You chose this partner for a reason. What is it you will learn from this mate of yours? What will you learn about yourself, your choices, your style, your attitude, the things you have taken for granted as true that may not be true?
Is there something you’ve learned that may help you face tomorrow? Can you make a plan for doing things differently?
You can?
Well, guess what? If you can do things differently or at least see them differently, that’s change. That is the very change you said you can’t do.
“But it is so hard, Dr. Deb.”
Yes, it is. I will be the first one to agree with that. It is extremely hard. This difficult world works in ways that seem to trip us constantly. But now we have gone from you saying you can’t change to making a plan to do one small thing differently. That is super progress.
- Maybe your progress is saying “Good morning” to someone you are mad at so as to break the awful spell.
- Maybe it is focusing on the blessings in your life instead of the pain.
- Maybe it is spending a few minutes listening sympathetically to the stuff your child is trying to tell you even though you would have thought of it as nonsense.
- Maybe the little change is not needing to “win” any more.
- Maybe it is giving the benefit of the doubt to your spouse.
- Maybe it is giving of yourself a little more than you used to without thinking you want something back.
- Maybe it is just holding your tongue before saying something hurtful.
I’ve seen amazing changes in people and those changes are small — yet their significance is huge.
- There’s the person who was miffed because she was left out of something who a year later was more generous in her thinking.
- There’s the person who used to explode over mistreatment and now recognizes that the world is full of “characters” so he doesn’t have to let them bother him.
- There’s the couple that made a decision to just breathe when things got a bit too heated and learned to laugh instead of taking trivial things seriously.
- There’s the teen that went from feeling insecure to quite the opposite.
So, yes, change can and does occur. We’re required to do it. In fact, there really would be no point in living if we were not so required. Think about it this way. We were created imperfect. That means that at least a part of our job here is to correct ourselves. We were not meant to be satisfied with our imperfection. That would make no sense at all. Making the world a better place starts with us. Actually it starts within us.
That requires moving out of our comfort zone. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that your comfort zone is not comfortable so therefore you really would love to be out of it. Sure, you’d love to be out of it, but NOT if it takes a whole bunch of work. That is asking too much.
Let’s take a typical example: Depression. No one could call it “comfortable.” Yet, it is, indeed, a familiar place. And that is what is meant by comfort zone: the place you know from dark corner to dark corner. A depressed person would not feel like himself if he were happy. So being happy is actually scary.
For a Depressed Person, Getting out of the Familiarity of depression to focus on — and force one’s thoughts never to stray off of — the good in one’s life is difficult, strange, scary, and frustrating.
But it is doable just the same. Hard, yes. But doable.
This is what I think the addictions programs try to teach us. We are called upon to make a “fearless moral inventory” and then make changes.
Usually small changes that mean a lot. I told a couple recently, “You are two very nice people who do a lot for one another, only neither of you realizes it. Work on appreciating each other.” Small changes.
Think of how many nice things your partner did for you. Or make the assumption that they did not mean to hurt you. Or if they actually did mean to hurt you, it must mean that they were hurt very badly themselves (although this is a terrible way to deal with pain, but that’s for a different article).
I do not want to hear you telling me you can’t change. You can. And you are supposed to. Be proud of your baby steps in the right direction.