As a Therapist / Life Coach that enjoys helping people reach their goals and re-animate their lives. Therapy can be exciting if you are so worn out from hitting the same familiar wall over and over again. You can perhaps find relief by reaching out to someone who has experience in these matters and can oversee your big picture.
Age sometimes has a lot to do with how much a person can attempt to change their situation. Regardless of age, there are some who still retain the mental and emotional flexibility to make changes. I’d like to think when younger in their prime and faced with a challenge they charged into it gladly. Now so many years later they are willing but need a little push.
Years pass and experiences have been harvested and processed. Choices may have been made to avoid, reject or jump in feet first to what life demanded. Optimism, that battery that continues to be drained, needs a tune-up. Belief in oneself has perhaps drifted apart from intuition and needs to be connected again.
If any of the above resonates with you, then be aware that you’re not alone in this. Without consciously being aware of it, we’ve hunkered down, and held tightly to what we have known, keeping anything unfamiliar out. Distrust has taken the place of optimism. Another way to clarify this condition is that our pain, depression, and anxiety are known, and therefore there are no surprises. It has a kind of fuzzy comfort to it. What I hear as a response to questions requiring change is; “That’s not a problem, I’m fine with the way things are.”
Once we identify what is holding them back (image of self, deeply flawed belief systems, etc.), then the choices come into sharp focus, and they either will continue in therapy or cease attending.
In pondering, as I do after a client has left, what else I could have said that could have made them more of a warrior in their process, what intervention, what sage advice could I have given? I then realize my limitations in the time that I have had with them and can only hope that they return.
What I would like to impart to a client resistant to change would be: “You have a year left to live, now be honest with yourself, nothing stands in your way.”
John Shinavier, MA, RYT, Life Coach [please take a moment and rate the blog with a star or two. By leaving me your E mail and a response to a blog, it helps me help you more specifically.