Making Change
Two years ago, I experienced what was, in hindsight, clearly a pinnacle of burnout. On the surface, everything looked fine. I had a successful private practice, worked with clients that I adored, appeared to have a “good work-life balance,” and I headed the professional organization for psychologists in my region. After pursuing psychology, I had relegated writing and art, my other great loves, as secondary activities. They had become one of my least favorite words: hobbies. And my insides, dear reader, were, in a word: fucked.
I was anxious and irritable. I felt on autopilot much of the time. I had a deep sense of dissatisfaction that I was afraid to name because I knew, at a deep, non-verbal level, that to address it meant making major changes in my life. I tried not to think about the churning in my stomach when I once again avoided writing because I had to update a treatment plan. I danced around the subject even in my own therapy, because it was just so scary. I tried to appease the starving creative parts of myself by throwing little bits of sustenance—a weekend free to write, a new set of paints. It didn’t work. My body felt terrible, and at a deep level I knew that I was not being true to my own path.
This state of things finally shifted after a beautiful week at a writing workshop, another “treat” I granted myself as a respite from my complicated relationship with clinical work. During a two-day solo-drive home, I had time to reflect on the emotions and intuitions that were closer to the surface than usual, and saw the ways that I was managing deep dissatisfaction with my vocational life by planning to intensify it. And by that, I was in the process of planning not only to continue to practice psychotherapy, but to expand my business: taking on new supervisory responsibilities and potentially hiring employees. In hindsight, it seems so clear that I was heading for emotional disaster, trying to combat the effects of poison by ingesting more poison.
At the same time, I have so much compassion for the self that became activated in that process, who had learned at a young age that making other people happy, caring for other peoples’ emotional needs, and making it look easy and perfect, were very good ways of feeling safe and “earning” love. I was able to recognize that the profession I had chosen was a rift on this same pattern: I was doing “good and important work,” but work that—by nature—required giving of oneself without any expectation of reciprocity, and which left me little time to truly let go and engage in creative projects. How simultaneously cheesy and lovely it was, driving home from that poetry workshop, to feel hounded by Rilke’s most terrifying and awe-inspiring line: You must change your life.
Last column found me hurting and hobbled, couchbound as I recovered from hiking injuries. The need to change my plans and leave the trail early brought me up against some of these same longstanding patterns related to perfectionism, over-exertion, and goal-oriented behaviors, and brought me into conversation with myself, and with you, about why it is so hard to make changes, even when they are for our own good. Leaving the hiking trail was a small-fry decision compared to leaving my private practice, and yet both situations were similarly challenging because of my individual set of traits and patterns. Today, I want to focus on some of the supportive things we can do for ourselves as we embark on changemaking practices—ones that were essential to me in my own transitions—which can help us approach change optimistically and increase our chances of success.
Practicing new things is easier when we allow ourselves to imagine wildly
Start a sentence with “How cool would it be if…” and then fill in the blank. When I say imagine wildly, I mean think outside of the systems that we have. When I tried to address my work-related anxiety practically, it always involved making changes within the existing system. How could I cut down on the number of clients I saw, or better schedule my day to allow for more free time, or transition to more teaching and less of the emotionally-taxing face-to-face work? All of these “solutions” were destined to fail because they were not radical—they did not get to the root of the problem. It was only when I allowed myself the freedom to imagine wildly, to imagine all possibilities instead of just a limited set of “realistic” possibilities, that my mind was able to articulate a solution that felt true.
Let me be clear: I am not endorsing those type of manifestation practices that suggest that our own minds are the only barrier to our success. Living in a capitalistic, patriarchal, white-supremacist culture certainly creates a host of insidious conditions that are, by design, meant to keep most of us in positions where living out our dreams comes at a cost. It is not only disingenuous, but also cruel to suggest that individuals can rise above oppressive conditions by thinking positively.
What I am suggesting is that we can examine where we have internalized messages about what we can and can’t do, what is possible for us, and look for places that we may have been unnecessarily keeping ourselves small, telling ourselves something isn’t realistic, or otherwise buying into a story that is not necessarily true.
Practicing new things is easier when we allow and ask for support
I’ve written about this before, but the culture of individualism we swim in tells us that we should and can do everything ourselves. This is bullshit. Any significant changes that we make are so much easier with loving, enthusiastic support from our people. There are so many ways to ask for support: letting friends know about changes we are about to attempt and asking them to check in with us; thinking about shared resources and ways to minimize the burden of capitalism and grind culture; sharing your own experiences as a way of connecting with and being seen authentically by others.
Practicing new things challenges the status quo and is a liberation practice
I find nothing more delightful than hanging out with little kids who are in the “why?” phase of conversation development. Being asked “why” about every possible thing, big and small, forces me to actually consider things that have become so automatic, I haven’t actually thought about them deeply in a long time. I encourage you to frame change within “why” questions, specifically these two: “Why do I want to change X?” and “Why am I afraid/nervous/challenged to change X?”. Often times, the answers to these questions will help clarify, and clarify quickly, whether the changes we are trying to make are toward our own joy and liberation, or to please and appease others. Going into a change with a sense of personal joy (for example: “I want to meditate because it might be so cool to access an altered state of consciousness” sounds a lot more fun than “I want to meditate because I have a terrible, busy brain that needs to be disciplined.”) It’s also totally normal and expected to come up against some big emotions and cognitive “blanking out” when asking these questions—this doesn’t mean you won’t find the answers, it means that the questions are really important, and you will need to be gentle and take time in listening to your own intuition and inner wisdom.
I would love to hear about your own challenges and successes in making changes, and wish you all the space in the world for wild imagination and asking “why” as many times as you need. Until next time, friends.
