Stages of Change: What stage are you in?
Therapists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, and others who study human behavior (parents, for example) actually know a great deal about how people move through major life changes. We move in stages. What is a major life change? We’re not talking deciding between the raspberry torte or bananas foster here.
Quitting smoking is a major life change. Quitting your job and moving to Montana is a major life change. Divorce is a major life change. Transforming your lifestyle from sedentary to active (a surefire way to lose weight) is a major life change. The transition from the active abuse of drugs or alcohol to addiction recovery is a major life change.
That thing in the back of your mind that you’ve been meaning to do for a long time, the one that you’re sure will make everything better, that is a major life change.
Here are the stages:
- Pre-contemplation – Change, what change? I don’t need to change…
- Contemplation – I think I might need to change. How can I change?
- Preparation – I think I know what I want to do. Now I just need to do it….
- Action – I am doing it!
- Maintenance – I did it. Here’s how I make sure I keep doing it…
- Termination – Alright. Done. What’s next?
Change is possible. But it’s not always easy. In fact, sometimes it seems impossible.
Knowing what stage you’re in makes it a lot easier to figure out what you need to do to move forward.
Why Change is so Difficult
Change is not always about the brute force of the human will. If it were, dieting would be a much simpler process. Want to lose weight? Eat less, exercise more. End of story. If it doesn’t work, it must be because you didn’t really want to lose the weight, or weren’t willing to do the work required.
But it’s not that simple. It never is.
Major changes have three essential components: thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Any significant lifestyle change is going to affect each area in complex ways. Each must be examined as you move closer to the change itself. If success still alludes after repeated attempts, one of the three components is primarily to blame. Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to figure out which one.
Telling yourself that you didn’t have the willpower is neither true nor helpful. So don’t do it.
You are beautiful now.
Beauty is an open and fearless heart. Beauty is the courage to accept yourself, love yourself.
Many people think like this:
- I’ll be beautiful if I lose 30 pounds.
- I’ll be beautiful if I get that promotion, those shoes, that haircut.
- I’ll be beautiful if my children are perfect.
- I’ll be beautiful if I am treated like I’m beautiful.
Skip all that. Purge yourself of “beautiful if…”
You are beautiful now. Period.
Secret to Happiness? Be a good friend.
A recently published book, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, takes a look at what research tells us about the characteristics of the happiest 10% among us. Are they all rich? Good looking? Famous? Live in comfortable climates? Smarter than the rest of us? Excellent golfers? Read a ton of self-help books? Do they meditate, do yoga, eat only raw, fresh vegetables?
Nope.
The one characteristic that unites these lucky, happy few: they form and maintain lasting social relationships. They have friends, make new friends, and invest energy into maintaining close personal relationships over time. They don’t wait for you to call. They call.
So how do you find happiness in life? Make news friends and keep the old. What your grandmother said is true: Want to have good friends? Be a good friend.
Grief
The present moment always feels to us the most vital, the most important, and the most essential. This is the nature of time. It is our nature. We will all experience great joy and great sadness as me move through life. This too is our nature. During periods of great sadness, it may be beneficial to remind ourselves that our lives are more than the moment of our experience at any given time.
This does not mean that what we are feeling is not real. Feelings are always real. What it means is that we have within us the power to perceive our loss, or grief, in the way of our choosing. We have the power to determine what our feelings mean.
Prescription Painkillers Drive 91% Increase in Teen Poisoning Deaths
A new report released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) provides a chilling statistic driven by teenage prescription drug use. Almost twice as many teens died from poisoning in 2009 compared to 2000. The reason for the alarming increase, according to the report, is an increase in teen use of prescription painkillers like Demerol, Percocet, Vicodin, and Oxycodone. These powerful painkillers are opiates, classed in the same category of drugs as heroin. They are highly addictive and extremely dangerous.
Therapy: the natural cure
Doctors are very quick these days to prescribe psychotropic medications to relieve the symptoms of anxiety or depression. A psychotropic medication is a drug that acts on the chemistry of the brain to change a person’s perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior. These powerful medications have the ability to change how someone thinks, feels, or acts. They are the favorite tool in many health professionals’ tool-kits. For example, 25% of college-age young people in the United States are prescribed a psychotropic medication.
Therapy is a natural alternative treatment for anxiety, depression, and other difficulties. Often individuals enter therapy while taking an anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication. However, therapists do not prescribe drugs; they talk and they listen. They use evidence-based therapeutic techniques to help individuals understand themselves, their problems, their feelings, and their relationships in a way that improves their lives. A therapist can help you discover the root cause of depression or anxiety. If change is needed, a therapist will guide you through the process.
But the change will come from you. The insight will come from you. Therapy believes that you hold the key to unlock the mysteries of yourself. Solutions are not given to you (in pill form, or otherwise), they come from you. When you have come to understand your own strengths, you will be truly healed.
Dosed: The Medication Generation Grows Up
A new book challenges conventional wisdom regarding the use of prescription medications to treat anxiety, depression, and behavior problems in the United States. Kaitlin Bell Barnett’s new book, Dosed: The Medication Generation Grows Up, asks a series of uncomfortable questions about the long-term consequences of our culture’s increasing dependence on psychotropic medications.
According to the book, 25% of college-age young people in the United States are currently prescribed a medication designed to regulate their mood, focus, attention, or behavior. The book examines the ethical and philosophical implications of our culture’s reliance on pharmacological solutions to psychological, social, or behavioral problems.
Are chemical solutions the right solutions? Why has the medical establishment moved so quickly in the past decades towards developing and prescribing neurochemical solutions to life’s problems? What does this say about our culture?
Teen Binge Drinking
Something for nothing does not exist in this world. Not spiritually, not emotionally, not financially. The easy and free feeling that comes from ingesting massive amounts of alcohol? It comes, like everything else, with a price tag. Even outside of potentially disastrous context of addiction, binge drinking among teenagers has real consequences, cognitive (brain) consequences.
A recent study, (Binge Drinking May Affect Memory of Teens), shows that binge drinking, even among non-addicted teens, impairs spacial working memory. According to researcher Susan F. Tapert:
“Even though adolescents might physically appear grown up, their brains are continuing to significantly develop and mature, particularly in frontal brain regions that are associated with higher-level thoughts, like planning and organization. Heavy alcohol use could interrupt normal brain cell growth during adolescence, particularly in these frontal brain regions, which could interfere with teens’ ability to perform in school and sports, and could have long-lasting effects, even months after the teen uses.”
Binge drinking, by the way, is defined as five or more drinks for a man or four or more drinks for a woman.
Life: the greatest gift we never asked for
I have no memory of longing to be alive. I don’t remember asking anyone or anything for the opportunity to experience life. It was a gift freely given, never asked for.
Our time together in life is a gift of incomprehensible value.
Don’t forget to say thanks once and a while.
