Awareness Is Not Enough For Change

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

There are 630 muscles in the human body. 208 bones. About 5 liters of blood (depending on weight). The lungs take about 17,280 breaths per day.

The human heart makes from 51840 to 144000 beats per day, pumping blood, which carries nutrients to every cell of the body, takes away what is already unnecessary and must be removed from the body.

The cerebral cortex contains 10,000-100,000 million neurons and an even larger number of glial cells (the exact number of which is not yet known). And all this works in close interconnection, the work of each organ affects the functioning of the entire system called the organism. that if one organ fails, then the whole organism rebuilds its work. First, it compensates for the "breakage" by distributing the load on other organs. If the compensation was long-term and the breakdown is not restored for some reason, then the rest of the organs begin to ache from excessive load.

For example, if, due to stress, the blood vessels are in spasm, the heart is forced to push the blood harder and more often, so that it has time to bring nutrition to each cell. The eyes are hit first, because the blood that carries oxygen and nutrients first enters the brain, as a strategically important human organ. The eyes experience all the "delights" of increased pressure. Then the kidneys begin to send greetings, which work in an emergency mode (the blood is chasing harder and faster). And then a vicious circle starts - the kidneys cannot cope, the metabolism changes. In order to bring nutrients to the cells and remove toxins, the heart begins to pump blood even faster, and the kidneys become even harder.

I cite this whole chain only in order to clearly demonstrate the interconnection of ALL body systems with each other and the importance of the functioning of each organ.

And now I turn to the main point, which seems to me extremely important in the context of psychotherapy.

A little prelude:

The main tool of psychotherapy is awareness. Realizing his contribution to what is happening in a person's life, appears opportunity to change this life at a person's own choice as much as such changes in a person's power (let's not forget that there is also an external environment (people, events, phenomena), over which a person has no power).

The most keyword in the paragraph above is opportunity. I want to emphasize it especially.

For, at times, there is an expectation of a miracle from psychotherapy. Like, I'll come to psychotherapy, fix my brains, that's when my real Life will begin! And I will work hard on myself, as much as necessary, just to feel differently, just to stop these endlessly repeating events / reactions / scenarios from which I am exhausted.

But there is one very important detail here, which sometimes falls out of the focus area: awareness alone is not enough for change.

If I am passionate about how I need abs on my stomach, then I can understand why I do not work on the abs. However, awareness alone is not enough for these long-awaited cubes, and you have to sweat as well. True, not through "willpower" (I don’t believe in it at all), but already on the energy of my own desire. But still sweat, even if it’s high (because I’m in contact with this desire of mine).

If I am passionate how I want the scenarios in my relationship to change, I can realize my contribution to what is happening. However, in order to really change something, I will have to do something differently.

And this is fraught with the fact that I will:

a) very scary

b) I will feel vulnerable (awkward, weak, ridiculous, vulnerable …)

c) I will be wrong, sometimes it hurts

When walking, 400 muscles are involved. In adulthood, this seems natural, few people think about how difficult it really is. Just imagine - simultaneously engage and coordinate tension-relaxation of 400 muscles! Moreover, on the machine, without thinking about it!

But, if you remember your children, or ask your parents how many times they grabbed their hearts when you mastered this skill, it becomes obvious that when mastering upright posture, you hardly felt comfortable and easy. Until you deal with 370 muscles, thirty can treacherously go out of focus! And then there is nothing left but to learn the different delights of sometimes heartless gravity.

I once worked in a center where people come to treat scoliosis. The first step is to teach them to walk again. And this, it turns out, is even more difficult than learning from scratch! Because on the machine you want to do it the way you used to. And if a child is driven by a spontaneous and irresistible thirst for knowledge when mastering walking, then in adulthood, in order to change habitual patterns, incredible self-discipline, self-awareness, self-support and acceptance of responsibility for their own changes are also required. That is, here a whole complex of "muscles of the soul" is connected, in addition to the body. But not a single change in the soul will lead to changes outside, if it is not supported by action (new experience).

I mean, therapy is just one tool, a resource that can be used for change. But no therapist and no therapy can change anyone's life for someone else. Therapy can be a great exercise machine to pump up the muscles you want and / or try out new experiences in a safe space.

But just as striving for the spiritual without taking care of the physical (and vice versa), as well as developing the intellectual without developing the sensible, just as taking care of others without taking care of oneself, etc., are unlikely to lead to a feeling of integrity and the experience of harmony.

So it goes.

@psychologist Alyaeva Ksenia.