Everything Hurts. Nothing Helps! Or Why Work On Yourself Does Not Give A Result

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-18 02:26

Quite often, clients come to me who have already tried all possible methods of working with themselves, read a lot of books, have done many practices, attended a large number of seminars. They know a lot, they themselves can tell any psychologist what is wrong with them and what are the reasons for their troubles. But they all come with the same pain and misunderstanding why all this does not work.

A very common phrase in such a conversation: "I know everything, I understand everything, but I can’t help myself." Their condition is close and understandable to me. There was a period of just such a misunderstanding in my life: I already understood everything in myself, realized, worked - why does nothing in life change?

There can be many reasons for this outcome, I will try to highlight a few:

Secondary benefit.

Can a problem be beneficial and beneficial? It turns out that it can. Finding it can be very difficult. Here you need to be extremely honest with yourself. Find the answer within myself: what do I get when I have this problem? To understand this, try to take a blank sheet of paper, divide it into two columns, in one you write the answers to the question: "What will I get if the problem is solved?" and in the second to the question: "What do I get if everything remains unchanged." Such an exercise will help you understand a lot about yourself and the problems, but only if you are extremely honest with yourself.

For example, a good, in my opinion, illustration of the secondary benefits of smoking (illustration for the article).

Escape.

Information appears about a new method of working on yourself, a new exercise, you start doing it. But not completely. Or not at full strength. Well, for example, there are exercises that, if you do not do it for at least 21/40 days in a row, there will be no result - the habit will not have time to develop. You do a week, a second, you missed a couple of days, then started again, then abandoned. Time has passed. The impression remains in my memory that a lot of work has been done, but there is no result. So with one exercise / book / technique, the second, the third.

It can be the same with trips to a psychologist. Take one or two sessions, then "suddenly" difficulties arise, and communication stops. So months pass, sometimes even years, but "things are still there." And as a result, a strong conviction: "I work so much on myself, but all these techniques are completely useless." And in fact, of all the methods that you actually performed, none were completed or performed in accordance with the recommendations.

Do you recognize yourself? In this case, you need to seriously deal with the reasons, what is lacking in order to hold on to something for a long period of time? And if you even saw a similar pattern in your life, this is not a small step, but only the first. Further, only a serious effort on oneself will help. Choose the method you like best, and make a promise to yourself to keep it for exactly as many days as recommended by the authors. Even if somewhere in the middle of the path it seems that everything is completely useless, and you are wasting time, continue no matter what. At the same time, tracking your feelings and emotions about this. It will also be helpful to keep a diary. And only after doing the work with full dedication, at the right time, you can objectively understand whether there is a result or not enough.

Did not work out? Then we go back to point # 1 and look for a secondary benefit.

Dazzling result.

We take all the same new technique. You begin to do it hard, everything with full involvement and dedication. You practically live by this idea. A short time passes, and here it is! Feeling of flight, change, result. The euphoria goes off scale, and you gradually start to throw this business. The impression remains that everything that should have happened has already happened, you can relax. Days go by, perhaps weeks, and suddenly you begin to notice that everything that you have fought so hard against is returning in the same volume and strength. And hello, disappointment, powerlessness and a persistent feeling: "Nothing helps." What to do? Roughly the same as in the second paragraph, only we focus on the fact that even if it seemed - "this is happiness", continue to work. Enjoy, reflect and carry on! And only then can the result be more stable and profound.

Insufficient inclusion.

For example, we read about an exercise aimed at acceptance of appearance: every day to look at ourselves in the mirror and notice the merits, to pronounce certain phrases. And you honestly did the exercise every day, for the entire prescribed period. But! How was it done? A few minutes before bedtime, half asleep and with closing eyes. They said phrases, but inside the subconscious mind continued to whisper: "Well, well … I don't believe it!" But you did everything as written. And here it is important to understand: all these methods and exercises do not work like pills - the main thing is to drink, and then the whole action will be performed by the body. There is no point in doing an exercise just for the sake of doing it. It is important to feel, understand, pass through the depth of your feelings.

All this is just a very small list of reasons due to which there may be a feeling of ineffectual work on oneself. And to a greater extent, this list is suitable for superficial introspection. Behind each of these seemingly simple barriers may be more serious psychological blocks. Therefore, if the feeling that your process of self-knowledge and development does not bring you the desired result accompanies you for a long time, allow yourself to turn to a specialist for help and research this topic with him.