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This is How Positive Change Happens...Recently, a wise friend taught me a simple yet profound intervention. It goes like this: It's easy to ____________________ (fill in the blank). That's it. I have found this tool to be very helpful when I am struggling with accomplishing tasks that I actually want to do, but part of me is resisting and thinking of it as somehow hard or difficult. For example, I like to go to yoga class on Friday morning, but sometimes I get into a thought pattern where I think that it's difficult. I start to struggle with myself and then feel de-energized. When I allow myself to get caught in that "it's hard" thought/feeling trap, I am far less likely to go to the yoga class I want to go to! So now, I practice telling myself, "It's easy to go to my yoga class". Then, I feel a sense of ease, optimism, and strength in my body and mind. Consequently, it is easy for me to get to my yoga class. In a more general sense, applying this "It's easy…" intervention is helping me to take good care of myself, increase my sense of self-esteem and self-mastery, and improve my relationships. This topic also makes me think of a woman I was working with in therapy. She sought counselling because she wanted to break free from an intimate relationship that was harming her. When she was initially sharing her struggle with me, she often said how hard it was for her to leave the relationship. I offered her empathy about her struggle. At the same time, I was also aware that her thought pattern that it was so hard to leave the relationship was a significant part of what was keeping her stuck in it. One day, we were doing some deeper work focusing on her desire to leave and her experience of being stuck. During this session, she had a major breakthrough: she realized that it was easy for her to take the leap and leave. She allowed herself to think this new, positive thought, visualize it, and feel it. She smiled. Shortly after that session, she ended the relationship. She freed herself up by accessing the ease that was available to her. The "It's easy…" intervention is not to be used as a way to deny, minimize, or judge the real struggles we experience with challenges in our life. It is an invitation to stand on that paradoxical edge where we recognize that something can be hard and easy at the same time. Sometimes, we have perceived something as hard for so long that it is useful to allow space for experimenting with the perception that maybe, just maybe, it's easy. The liberation that follows is well worth it. |
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