Quotes About Change

Most big transformations come about from the hundreds of tiny, almost imperceptible, steps we take along the way.

The nature of life is change and the nature of people is to resist change." It was a paraphrase of something he'd read that had resonated with him both personally and as a therapist, he told me, because it was a theme that informed nearly every person's struggles.

I think of a Flannery O'Connor quote: "The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

Sometimes in their pain, people believe that the agony will last forever. But feelings are actually more like weather systems—they blow in and they blow out. Just because you feel sad this minute or this hour or this day doesn't mean you'll feel that way in ten minutes or this afternoon or next week. Everything you feel—anxiety, elation, anguish—blows in and out again.

When the present falls apart, so does the future we had associated with it. And having the future taken away is the mother of all plot twists.

One of the most important steps in therapy is helping people take responsibility for their current predicaments, because once they realize that they can (and must) construct their own lives, they're free to generate change.

With aging comes the potential to accrue many losses: health, family, friends, work, and purpose.

The nature of life is change, but the nature of people is to resist change.

Whenever one person in a family system starts to make changes, even if the changes are healthy and positive, it's not unusual for other members in this system to do everything they can to maintain the status quo and bring things back to homeostasis.

I think of something else Wendell once said: "The nature of life is change and the nature of people is to resist change." It was a paraphrase of something he'd read that had resonated with him both personally and as a therapist, he told me, because it was a theme that informed nearly every person's struggles.

Take a risk. Maybe our pasts don't define us but inform us.

You can't get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me. You get through your pain by accepting it and figuring out what to do with it. You can't change what you're denying or minimizing. And, of course, often what seen like trivial worries are manifestations of deeper ones.

Typically, a patient might have a difficult session about a childhood trauma, then come in the next week and announce that therapy is no longer needed.

Our notion of the future can be just as powerful a roadblock to change as our notion of the past.

Before successful therapy, it's the same damn thing over and over. After successful therapy, it's one damn thing after another.

Unfortunately, sometimes people leave just as their symptoms lift, not realizing (or perhaps knowing all too well) that the work is just beginning and that staying will require them to work even harder.

When the present falls apart, so does the future we had associated with it. And having the future taken away is the mother of all plot twists. But if we spend the present trying to fix the past or control the future, we remain stuck in place, in perpetual regret. By Google-stalking Boyfriend, I've been watching his future unfold while I stay frozen in the past. But if I live in the present, I'll have to accept the loss of my future.

Changing our relationship to the past is a staple of therapy. But we talk far less about how our relationship to the future informs the present too. Our notion of the future can be just as powerful a roadblock to change as our notion of the past. In

Maybe our pasts don't define us but inform us.

I remember reading a divorced woman's experience of getting to know a new lover after her decades-long marriage ended: "I will never lock eyes in the delivery room with David," she wrote. "I've never met his mother.

far better that [a patient make progress but] forget what we talked about than the opposite possibility (a more popular choice for patients)—to remember precisely what was talked about but to remain unchanged.

think of something else Wendell once said: "The nature of life is change and the nature of people is to resist change." It was a paraphrase of something he'd read that had resonated with him both personally and as a therapist, he told me, because it was a theme that informed nearly every person's struggles

Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and experience something before its meaning becomes apparent. It's one thing to talk about leaving behind a restrictive mindset. It's another to stop being so restrictive.

But feelings are actually more like weather systems—they blow in and they blow out. Just because you feel sad this minute or this hour or this day doesn't mean you'll feel that way in ten minutes or this afternoon or next week.