I am so often asked in both my private therapy practice and when training corporate organisations this million-dollar question: “But Mark, how do we really change?” This comes up particularly when we are exploring deeply ingrained pathological patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that lead to unhappiness. Neuroscientific research has confirmed that the brain’s capacity for neuroplasticity allows for ongoing change and growth throughout life, providing evidence that we can all transform as human beings. However internal blocks and unprocessed trauma can hinder this change. I have therefore created a four-step model that can facilitate positive change in anyone that has a strong desire to change, which I will briefly introduce here:
Stage 1 – Awareness: Awareness is the first step to change. You cannot change anything if it is suppressed, unidentified or is hiding in the shadow aspect of the psyche. Freud emphasized the importance of “making the unconscious conscious” which is the central foundation of psychoanalysis. This area is where psychotherapy excels, we become increasingly aware of our past traumas and how they impact our functioning and relating in the here-and-now. However, you can spend a lifetime in therapy “becoming aware” and still stuck in life, repeating past behaviours, getting emotionally triggered and regressing unless you are guided through the following stages.
Stage 2 – Process: After becoming aware we need space to process, which involves the release, letting go and integration of emotions and energy. This can simply be the space between the therapist and client encompassing the unfolding journey of sharing, grieving, trusting, learning and growing in therapeutic relationship, although sometimes a different approach is needed, particularly where complex trauma exists. Processing could also include EMDR therapy, which reprocesses trauma in the brain primarily, somatic experiencing, which releases trauma from the body, and/or shamanic healing which removes traumatic energy from the soul.
Stage 3 – Stillness: Even after months or years of awareness and processing, the brain will still have a programme that tells the body to respond in a certain way, this is called a habit. What we need to do is increase the time between stimulus and response, in neuroscience this is called “the refractory period.” This can be thought of as the duration between experiencing a thought (stimulus) and initiating an action (response). Often we feel we simply just react, but we don’t. We experience a stimulus and then we respond. Stillness and slowing down in the moment brings that awareness to this process, giving us more options as to how we might want to respond differently. This stage is where meditation, mindfulness and Buddhist practices excel.
Stage 4 – Practice: Then we must practice going against the grain of our past conditioning. This might be responding to ourselves or our loved ones differently, acting or behaving in a different way. Starting your day with a wellbeing self-care practice. Finding your voice and singing your song. Most importantly remembering that “repetition is the mother of habit” so we much practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until we have created a new healthy programme in our unconscious. Then we achieve auto-pilot, when the new change becomes effortless.
For holistic healing and recovery of the mind, the body and the soul, we need to focus on becoming aware of our healthy patterns, have space to process difficult emotions energetically, cultivate stillness in the present moment to increase the time between stimulus and response and practice, practice, practice to create new healthy hardwired neural pathways. This is how anyone can change and become their most developed self. But first you need a strong desire to change. Are you ready?
