Tools for Intentional Living – Dr. J. Nickens

Are you thinking of starting therapy but feel uncertain of what you might need to change about yourself?  Often new therapy clients are wary of the very changes they may need to make in order to improve their lives.  Indeed this reticence may compel some people to avoid engaging in psychotherapy all together.   There is a fear that one must become a completely different person.   While some special situations call for major changes in how the person thinks, feels and acts, the truth is that for most clients there are small, incremental changes that over time will make a big difference and result in the transformation they want to make.  Try thinking about it this way:  if you make a moderate adjustment in a diet or savings plan, there may be a minimal immediate impact.  But over time, by maintaining fidelity to that moderate change, new and more helpful habits take hold, and that moderate change has a cumulative positive impact on your life… better cholesterol measures or a little more money in the bank.   The same is true of any positive behavioral change even if it is moderate.  It’s not usually necessary to make an abrupt and dramatic shift in your manner of living in order to bring about positive change, as long as the new direction is indeed a positive one and you stick to it.

The change process begins with understanding what is going wrong in your life and how you are contributing to the problem.  Yes, others may be contributing to the problem as well, but you’re the one you can actually change without seeking permission!  Then by developing  a deeper awareness of your own actions, including why you’ve acted in that way, you can begin to identify which changes. may have the most beneficial impact in your life.  Next, making a moderate shift in behavior, perhaps just slightly different from what you now do, and working to maintain that change, begins to build a new pathway for your life.  Over time the desired changes will have become easier to see and to maintain.  Each day of living with a new intention and a moderate change in behavior soon becomes weeks and months of the new and happier you, and also opens the door to yet another moderate change that you had not imagined possible and that may bring you even closer to the lifestyle you want.  Here’s how W.H. Murrey wrote about the magic to taking initiative and experiencing the surprise of what can happen next:

“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.  Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plan: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, thenProvidence moves too.  All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.  A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in ones favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way, I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: ‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.  Begin it now!”    W. H. Murray

So today, think boldly and think small!  Begin building the new pathway for the “new you” by contacting a mental health professional and starting to make the moderate yet magical changes that can transform your life.