Change is Harder for the Couples — How Do We Change it?
“No one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.” – Paulo Coelho
June 5, 2018
“No one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.” – Paulo Coelho
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” – Paulo Coelho
If you didn’t have an adult to provide the boundary of safety to allow you to experience change as a child, find a friend or a therapist to be that adult figure for you. You do not need to do it alone. Let your therapist or your friend help you figure out the boundary between safety and danger. Let this person help you to balance the feeling of anxiety and excitement for change. Let this person accompany you to experience those unfamiliar feelings or unknown territories.
Reason # 1: The old pattern used to be a survival strategy or to serve some purpose.
Reason # 2: Change is too scary and unknown.
We all know that personality is generally pretty stable even though the recent studies have shown that personality does change over time for the better (but a slow and gradual process). One of the main reasons the personality change happens when a person chooses to do so to live a meaningful and successful life. So, if no choice is made and no action is taken, a person’s personality can stay the same or change slow and gradually throughout the years.
So, the bottom line is: if you want the change, you are the one who has to make up your mind and to take action.
““In any situation, planned or unexpected, we all have the desired outcome. In spite of doing the best we could and chose the best option at the time, the actual result may not the desired outcome we would like it to be. When the real outcome and the desired outcome were different, the difference between them already caused a sense of loss. We can try to reason with ourselves why the decision we made or the choice we pick was the best one. It didn’t change the loss between the desired outcome and the actual outcome.”
This theory tremendously helpful to understand the couples’ relationship history. It helps to see how the couples transit from one stage to another and whether they made the transition successfully. If not, it helps me and the couple to evaluate how have they tried to cope with the issues successfully or destructively. Even in the “complicated situation” such as divorce or blended family, the theory also helps me and the couple to see what are the needs for them to cope with being different stages in their relationship.
“Later, because of their daughters. Dan and Grace had tried hard to make their marriage work……Dan deeply loved his daughters. Grace never questions his devotion to them, but she seriously doubted he was still in love with her.”~ Grace Sherman, “16 Lighthouse Road”
Everyone, including myself, spends a lot of time worrying, planning, and thinking about the future from our experiences in the past. When it comes to the interaction with the human beings, it is all about now.
Our first step is to help her feel safe when she is in school or at home, especially when she is at the place where the perpetrator is around. Then, we will have to talk about what’s her next step. No matter she decided to press charges or not, there is always something a counselor can help other than “moving on.” Many victims cannot take the stand to file for the legal actions because we don’t make them believe that we believe their stories and we will be with them along the way. The process of figuring out what she wants to do can take a while already. When the client feels that he/she is locked into a “yer or no” situation, that’s they often feel trapped.
I am Dr. Grace Chen, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
Heal Trauma, Change Pattern, Find Purpose and Fulfillment, Transform Life Path & Relationship
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