You've probably heard this one but here it is again:
If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. But if you place it in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, as the water heats up, the frog will stay there and before long, allow itself to be boiled to death.
Change is such a sticky topic. I think it gets us all. Getting older. Moving house. Becoming a parent. Losing a parent. Children growing up. Changing jobs. Retirement. It pokes us in that vulnerability spot, in a sense it’s a loss and as humans we mourn loss and avoid it if possible.
Then there are times when we have started to realise we need to make a change. Maybe there is toxicity in our thoughts, behaviours, relationships. Or maybe we have started to notice we've formed habits that don’t serve us well. We often sit with this discomfort for a long time before doing anything about it or even acknowledging it’s there. And you know some of us never move out of this stage at all, the discomfort becomes a familiar frenemy and we expect it to stick around. And that doesn’t make for a happy existence.
What I am talking about here is called the contemplation stage of change, where we know we need to do something differently but we’re not sure what, or whether we really want to. Just like our good froggy friend, we sit in the pot and boil ourselves almost to death before feeling forced into action. And for some of us, it feels too late- our mental/physical health is compromised, we’ve lost relationships closest to us, our marriage has failed, maybe we’re addicted to a substance as a way of coping with the hot water we are sitting in.
Or, we just feel like a ball of anxiety/anger/sadness that feels too tight and gnarly to ever untangle.
Moving from contemplation to action takes a few steps. The first one is the awareness that there’s actually a choice going on, a choice to keep sitting in hot water or to do something. Then it takes courage to start, to do something different. This involves a little bit of willingness and the insight that ‘now’ is a much better time to start than down the track, especially if you are already in pain. Lastly, having a bit of support from someone who can help the path become clearer is really helpful.
So, if you get the sense your wellbeing is being compromised because you’ve been sitting in the contemplation stage of change for a while now, can I help? I offer 1:1 appointments locally that can really shift people’s level of wellbeing. Being trained somatically, I work with both the mind and body to help people experience more capacity and happiness in their life. We store, stress, anxiety and trauma at a cellular level so using processes that engage the body memory as well as the mind dramatically increase the effectiveness of treatment.
If you would like to call to book an appointment or discuss this further send me an email via my contact page.
Katie x
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