“The opportunity we have today is to create a multivalent health care approach that appreciates the impact of “nonthings” on the “thinglike” bodies we’ve come to be so marvelously expert in. The “immaterial” mind and its “physical substrate,” the brain and body, are in a constant dance, as intimate as it is intricate.”
Gabor Maté, M.D. & Daniel Maté
The Myth of Normal
📚 Learn
🧠 Intervening in our Neuroplasticity
In my first newsletter, I discussed neuroplasticity and how it’s a natural process that all of us experience. I highlighted that what we want to do if we want to be in charge of the change that’s occurring each day is get involved in our neuroplasticity. That is, we have to consistently intervene through self-awareness, self-direction, and well-aligned action. Self-awareness, self-direction, and well-aligned are what they sound like, we practice becoming more aware of our actions and behaviors, we begin intentionally directing how we want to live, and then keep ourselves accountable to taking the action that is aligned well enough with the life we want.
Here are some points to consider before and along this path of change:
🧠 The Most Critical Decision – Choosing Your Guide
It is my experience that who we decide to be our therapist, coach, guide, mentor, etc. is arguably the most important decision we’re consistently faced with. I shared this with someone recently, “When looking for a therapist [person to guide you] keep this in mind… find someone you can develop a trusting relationship with… that can share the formula they use to figure things out… and that is still growing and creating value for those they serve.”
Along the way, here are some questions to ask yourself?
Am I feeling clearer since I began working with this person?
Am I feeling more empowered since I began working with this person?
Am I feeling less afraid and anxious since I began working with this person?
Am I feeling a greater degree of independence and freedom to experience the life I desire since I began working with this person?
Am I feeling good enough and like my life truly matters since I began working with this person?
🧠 Remember We Are Both Mind and Body
We always want to examine closely what’s happening on the mental/emotional side and on the physiological side; and, how each side is influencing the other. Our thoughts and emotions are consistently affecting our physiology, and our physiology is consistently influencing our thoughts and emotions. Historically, medicine has wanted to isolate one from the other as if the systems operate entirely independent of each other. New and honest science is saying that this is simply untrue and coming to accept notions like: “Mounting evidence for the role of the mind in disease and healing is leading to a greater acceptance of mind–body medicine.” (Source: Mind–body research moves towards the mainstream.)
Along the way, here are some questions to ask yourself?
What am I ingesting – news, media, negative conversations, food, pills, alcohol? All “ingestables” are undeniably impacting the way you feel and function.
Am I being too sedentary and not moving enough?
Am I taking on too much and overtaxing my mind, brain, and body?
Am I too stuck in my head and not opening up and speaking with others consistently enough?
🧠 Transformative Change is a Quantity and Quality Game
We could argue that neuroscience has proven that quality change is nothing more than a game of quality reps. Simply put: the habit with the most reps wins! It wins by becoming an automatic action or behavior that functions in our life with little to no conscious thought or direction. As we embark on this journey of change we want to ensure we’re being intentional about two things: 1.) the quality of the new repetition (the new action/behavior and how aligned it is with the new life we’re working to create) and 2.) the quantity of the new repetitions (the more reps we put in the will make change feel more natural and readily available).
Along the way, here are some questions to ask yourself?
Are the changes I’m experimenting with different enough from the way I used to act and behave?
How often am I practicing this new way of living?
When was the last time I examined the data of the path I’m on?
🧠 6 -12 Months is Good Enough to Determine If We’re On The Path
The evidence suggests that, for most, 6-12 months of consistently practicing a new way of living is, as I like to say: an experiment that will lend itself to some quality data. In other words, we will be able to see some notable changes in 6-12 months (sometimes sooner, sometimes longer) IF we’re on a real path of growth and development.
Along the way, here are some questions to ask yourself?
How long have I been on this path?
Do I feel like I’m on a new path that’s entirely a creation of my own internal changes?
🧠 The Undeniable and Transformative Value of Rejuvenating Sleep
Sleep. It might be the single most important key to quality change. It is unlikely that you will see any noteworthy shifts if you aren’t working at optimizing your sleep!
Along the way, here are some questions to ask yourself?
How am I feeling in the morning (i.e. clear, energized, rested, physically strong)?
How many hours am I getting?
What does my sleep planning look like?
Is the sleep I’m getting natural?
🧠 There are Different Regions of Change
The change and life we get to live as a single person versus someone who is in partnership and/or in parenthood look and feel different. If you are experiencing some frustration in partnership and/or parenthood and confused as to why your single person skillset isn’t necessarily “doing the job” – have no fear! While there is some overlap, each of these areas will demand a specific type of personal growth and development from you.
Along the way, here are some questions to ask yourself?
In what region of my life do I experience the greatest challenges?
Am I needing to shift and work on a different region?
💡 Insights
There’s Always Room for More Growth
It has become clear that so much of conventional therapy has been hyper-focused on the idea that we are broken and need to be fixed. It often feels like me and many people I’ve worked with are walking around thinking “ugh… here’s yet another thing about me that’s screwed up.” An important insight for us to develop through the work is that quality work focuses very little energy on fixing or mitigating the damage of some sabotaging part of ourselves that lurks in the shadows; and instead focuses on healing and transforming different parts of us. Once healed and transformed well enough, then the idea is simple: continue growing. What I now understand better than ever is: the healthiest, most successful, and most fulfilled people in the world are those that continue to invest in themselves. They have come to fully experience one of the few things we want to deeply comprehend on this journey of life: there’s always room for more growth!
Nuances Deeply Matter
I often refer to sustainable and transformative change as: subtle and still quite significant. In the Insight Development education portion of a call with a client yesterday, I highlighted that they had in our previous call reported that they were beginning to feel notable shifts. That is, differences in the way they were feeling (i.e. more energy) that they were attributing to the work we are doing. Two weeks had passed, and while we were catching up, they appeared to have forgotten what they shared. When we explored in a bit more detail the changes they’ve been experiencing, they recalled what they shared and confirmed that they were in fact feeling some – subtle and still quite significant – differences. Specifically, they are at times beginning to experience having more energy than they’ve had in quite some time. It appeared that, the change, while significant, wasn’t being seen and noted as currently “life changing.” There are likely many reasons for this, and the one that I want to highlight is: nuances deeply matter. I believe most of us want to believe or are expecting sustainable and transformative change to feel earth-shattering and that everything has to feel entirely different for us to credit the journey as worthwhile. This simply isn’t true. The slightest of changes can and will, with time, lead to a very different version of life!
When We Do the Work Our Perspective Changes
This one that I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to. When we do the work, we realize what matters and what doesn’t. It seems inevitable. Clients will come in with a goal, and in here’s what’s interesting, as the results of their work unfold most, if not all of them, begin to understand: what matters most. They come to experience on almost every level a change in perspective. What I also find interesting and reassuring is that when we do real work, we get in touch with what’s real, and make the discovery that we are far more alike than we are different.
🙌🏾 Victories
Reductions and Changes in Substance Use
A few clients that are working with me are reporting reductions in their substance use and abuse. Accompanying these changes are new insights into their life, the development of new and healthier narratives, and improvements they’re experiencing in their physical well-being.
A Safe Space They’ve “Never Experienced”
In a recent remote EMDR session I facilitated with a client, where the focus was to establish a calm, safe [internal] place/experience, they reported that they’ve: “never experienced a safe place before.” What a gift! To empower them to experience and develop a practice where they can now feel fully safe – for the first time ever!
“That’s the Most Beautiful Thing You’ve Said”
A client I’m working with approached their partner to repair after an argument they had. What we planned in our session that preceded this interaction was that the goal was to do one thing and one thing only – to take ownership for the part they had in the argument, and not to — defend, justify, rationalize, make excuses, shift all blame, etc. Their partner’s response: “that’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever said to me.”
46 in September!
My birthday was in September. I turned 46 years aware! While it’s cool and I’m deeply grateful to have experienced another birthday. The part I’m most excited about is the level of self-awareness I’ve been graced with at the age of 46! Let’s be clear, I have seldom embraced the opportunities to grow more self-aware with open arms. Life has often had to kick in the door to teach me what it wants to teach me! My commitment is to remain a student of life!
😃 Enjoying
Here’s a few of my favorite quotes from an audiobook that I’ve been enjoying and learning a great deal from!
The Having by
Suh Yoon Lee & Jooyun Hong
“Having is the way to change our lens from seeing what’s missing to seeing what’s there?”
Thoughts:
This feels accurate and aligned with what I see with the work I’ve done and work I’ve done with clients. While we may examine what’s missing, and maybe more importantly, why it’s missing, we will invest most of our time and energy in seeing the opportunities before us at this very moment. Shifting our attention from a place of missing out, lack, victim to a place of healing, growth, and practices that empower us, we move into what the authors refer to as a state of “having.”
“Biologically, the adult brain requires fourteen to twenty-one days to break its existing synaptic connection patterns and form new ones. During that time, Having severs the connection between existing emotions and begins to create a new neural network. As soon as that process is complete, we begin to see pleasant changes in the real world.”
Thoughts:
Anytime we start to speak about neuroscience, my ears tend to perk up! There are some different data points on how long it takes to build new habits. A quick search on Google gave me 18 to 254 days; so there may be some truth to the idea that in 14-21 days we can begin to experience some noteworthy changes. The more important takeaway and confirmation is that: 1.) our internal wiring is directly tied to what we’re experiencing externally, and 2.) quality change doesn’t take as long as we may have once believed.
“The key to changing your circumstances is emotion, not thought.”
Thoughts:
If we cut ourselves off from our emotions it will be unlikely that we will be able to heal, grow, and transform our lives. To some significant degree, what drives our life is emotions! We do things because we want to feel good. We don’t do things because we don’t want to feel bad. We have a limited experience of life if we have turned down, or turned off, our emotions. Emotions manage much of our sub and unconscious. Optimizing our thought-emotion relationship is of the utmost importance if we are to have any chance at experiencing a life that we get to co-create!
I trust you found some value in this month’s Newsletter! 🙌🏾
If you have any feedback, please reply as I would love to hear it! To those of you that provided me with some feedback last time — thank you! 🙏🏽
For all of your personal development and relationship growth desires – we are here!
Ry