Quotes About Change

The inability to say yes, however—to intimacy, a job opportunity, an alcohol program—is more about lack of trust in oneself. Will I mess this up? Will this turn out badly? Isn't it safer to stay where I am?

As the late psychotherapist Kohn Weakland famously said, "Before successful therapy, it's the same damn thing over and over. After successful therapy, it's one dame thing after another.

There is a continuing decision to be made as to whether to evade pain, or to tolerate it and therefore modify it.

The nature of life is change and the nature of people is to resist change.

I think of something else Wendell once said: "The nature of life is change and the nature of people is to resist change.

John lowers himself onto the couch, kicks off his shoes, then stretches out, lies down, and adjusts his head on the pillows. Usually he sits cross-legged on the sofa, so this is a first. I notice, too, that there's no food today. "Okay, you win," he begins with a sigh. "Win what?" I ask. "The pleasure of my company," he deadpans. I raise my eyebrows.

We tend to think that the future happens later, but we're creating it in our minds every day. 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.

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.

John said that when he was struggling with the pressure of his marriage and his career, he used to think that there'd be a point when he'd be happy again, and then when Gabe died, he thought he'd never be happy again. Now, he says, he's come to feel it's not either/or, yes or no, always or never. "Maybe happiness is sometimes,

Uncertainty, I'm starting to realize, doesn't mean the loss of hope—it means there's possibility.

We can't have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the

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.

Before successful therapy, it's the same damn thing over and over.

Einstein: "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

Stage 1: Pre-contemplation Stage 2: Contemplation Stage 3: Preparation Stage 4: Action Stage 5: Maintenance

procrastinate or self-sabotage as a way to stave off change — even positive change — because they're reluctant to give something up without knowing what they'll get in its place.

Insight is the booby prize of therapy" is my favorite maxim of the trade, meaning that you can have all the insight in the world, but if you don't change when you're out in the world, the insight—and the therapy—is worthless. Insight allows you to ask yourself, Is this something that's being done to me or am I doing it to myself? The answer gives you choices, but it's up to you to make them.

As a therapist, I know a lot about pain, about the ways in which pain is tied to loss. But I also know something less commonly understood: that change and loss travel together. We can't have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same. To help John, I'm going to have to figure out what his loss would be,

people procrastinate or self-sabotage as a way to stave off change — even positive change — because they're reluctant to give something up without knowing what they'll get in its place.

Often, though, people carry around the belief that the majority of their problems are circumstantial or situational—which is to say, external. And if the problems are caused by everyone and everything else, by stuff out there, why should they bother to change themselves?

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.

But sometimes without realizing it, we are choosing to be in relationships with people who fit into an old story, or we are choosing to respond to them based on an unhealthy script.

In fact, Wendell continues, I've lost more than my relationship in the present. I've lost my relationship in the future. We tend to think that the future happens later, but we're creating it in our minds every day. 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.

As the late psychotherapist John Weakland famously said, "Before successful therapy, it's the same damn thing over and over. After