By Angela Dunning
The courage it takes to willingly look at yourself and seek to change should never be underestimated.
Some of the bravest people are those who take themselves off to the therapists office week in, week out. Or to AA meetings, treatment centres, life coaches, or spiritual counselors. Yet, our culture doesn’t support or even really acknowledge the immense bravery it takes to change old, harmful habits that wreak havoc on individuals’ lives and those in their immediate lives. But also on wider society through the economic impacts of missed work, health services, police, prisons, and general societal problems.
Yet, take it from one who’s spent much of their adult life trying to come to terms with and move beyond the emotional neglect and harm I suffered as a small child: brave is the only word. What it takes to place yourself under the scrutiny of another’s intense gaze and honestly and frankly assess how you are living takes a tremendous amount of courage and a willingness to be seen for who you are in all your glory and darkness.
Great bravery is required to truly want to change and to embark on the lifelong process of becoming who you were truly born to be. To slough off the layers of conditioning, programming and falsity. This journey is definitely not for the faint-hearted, and most people never undertake this vital yet highly challenging task.
Wanting to actually change, to remove your layers of defence and pretence, requires not only courage but also the willingness to be humble. To step into humility, not know, assess yourself objectively and wisely, and allow others to give us feedback about how they experience us is a very uncomfortable experience. Again, most people aren’t strong enough to endure such painful revealing and so stay blissfully albeit unhealthily within the confines of the person they have been molded into from a very young age. It is far, far easier to stay as you are and focus instead on external things, people, and objects than it is to plunge into your inner depths where goodness knows what is languishing in the dark and murky waters of psyche and soul.
Undergoing psychological change requires us to undertake a very vulnerable process. We start to remove layers of defense, habits of behavior, comfort zone layers, and coping mechanisms. If any of our crutches are also addictions, whether substance or behavioural, attempts to stop and change these through willpower alone are futile. As the wise addiction expert, Dr. Gabor Maté, says, iit is the pain beneath the addiction, the emotional suffering and longing to be loved and belong, which create and fuel our addictions, both of which are outside the reach of conscious will power alone. Therefore, we must tend to our emotional wounds, needs, and longing with great attention if we are ever to break these life and soul-destroying habits.
Brené Brown talks a lot about how much courage is needed to be vulnerable; how brave we need to be, and how learning to be in the presence of others in our and their vulnerability is the key to healing, growth, and change, as well as to establishing more fulfilling connections and a life worth living.
It takes risk, commitment, dedication, and great amounts of patience with ourselves to undergo this task. As well as revisiting our most painful old wounds and traumas, we also risk exposure to our dark, shadow side, our less pleasant aspects of our character and personality. We start to learn how to feel and express previously forbidden emotions, particularly anger at those who’ve hurt us when we were young, as well as the people in our lives currently. Carl Jung termed this journey “Individuation,” and he was clear that it must involve facing our shadow and taking off our persona’s many masks and revealing who we are beneath this; the ”us” who got lost in all of the experiences of early childhood and a lifetime fitting in with society. He summed it up in this quote: “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
Change means change, and so it is not only hard work for us but also those around us as they have to start relating to us differently, and so for a time, change creates turbulence in our main relationships as we start behaving and relating differently, perhaps with more confidence and assertiveness than we ever previously have. All of this is challenging for the people in our lives, and many will want us to “change back”! But, we know the price we’d pay if we undid all of our hard work, and so sometimes change also means releasing old relationships and connections so that we may create a new life based on the changes we’ve worked long and hard for.
Ultimately, embarking on inner change is the greatest act of self-care and self-love. There is no more important undertaking than facing ourselves and being willing to step into a place of vulnerability to do so. So if you are on such a path, applaud yourself, be kind and generous with yourself even if it feels like the change is happening at a frustratingly slow pace. And also, be kind to others on their path, as they too are inhabiting vulnerability each day. So a kind gesture of support can make all the difference to alleviating another’s sense of isolation and struggle.
