“I Don’t Want to Change, I Just Want To Be Happier”: Mixed Messages About Change
I had mixed feelings when I heard this statement. I was partly sad, partly amused. The speaker too, had mixed feelings.
The part that made me sad is that so often when people say “I don’t want to change,” it is because they have been so hurt and shamed. “I don’t want to change” is so often a defense. It goes something like, “if you want me to change, you must think something is wrong with how I am.” Or the statement might be a counter-demand defense. “Don’t try to make me feel bad and wrong for how I’ve been; there’s nothing wrong with me, I’m okay.”
So often a critical parent or dissatisfied spouse, in the shaming heat of judgment and contempt, will demand the other person to change. Most people want to protect themselves from such a belittling requirement.
The “I just want to be happier” part is ironically amusing to me because being happier really IS a change for a person making that statement,.
The Nearly Universal Ambivalence About Change
The “I don’t want to change, I just want to be happier” mixed message is an example of the ambivalence pretty much all of us have to making changes. We say we want to grow, and we really do want things to be different, but heaven forbid we change.
Change can be hard because change means that we have to give something up. We have to give up what we know. What we know is safe. The unknown, now that can be pretty darn scary. For example, a client just told me the other day, “I miss my suicidal thoughts. They made me feel important, made me feel as if I had a special identity and substance.”
So with change, we naturally have two sets of feelings opposing each other. The group of “Yes, I want it” feelings, and the “No way, Jose” feelings.
This makes change hard because we are pulling in two different directions. It is like a two-horse chariot with each horse trying to go in the opposite directions. And the more significant the change, the more ambivalent we are.
The opposing energies usually reduce the focus and energy for the change work we want to make. The work of change involves several steps which take time.
6 Steps For Change Work
Here are the steps we go through to create change. While there are many, and not necessarily easy, they are worth the work!
1. We must first develop our ability to observe the pattern or behavior we want to change, because we can’t change what we don’t see clearly.
2. Then we have to make envision possibilities and make choices about what we WANT our new behavior or pattern to be.
3. Then we have to actually, ahem, (with much clearing of throats) commit to making the change.
4. Then we have to practice the new ways. Not once or twice, but over and over.
5. Then we have to be patient with ourselves because change usually happens way too slowly for most people. In the words of Dawn Pugh: “Take each day one at a time. Patience is a virtue and Self improvement will not happen over night.”
6. Finally, we need to develop compassion for ourselves, because we will most likely backslide. If we are constantly criticizing ourselves when we do not changes instantly and perfectly, we will only make change take us longer.
Feelings about change depend upon one’s point of view. To paraphrase a quote I don’t remember exactly, “What the caterpillar thought was catastrophe, the master knew as butterfly making.”
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