7. Change Is an Inside Job!
My great mentor, Dr. Milton Erickson, taught ways to help generate change through interrupting peoples’ Attempted Solutions. This allowed for shifting unwanted patterns to create new and better choices.
When working with a client who uses an attempted solution of intellectualization as their coping mechanism, I will direct them from looking for their answers from the conscious mind to going within to the unconscious mind to find their answers.
I help my clients recognize they have been looking for the keys in the wrong place.
We always find the answers when we go within and ask. These Parts inside of us have always wanted something wonderful for us. They are there with a deeper underlying gift and treasure for us. It is so good to re-claim those missing Parts of ourselves that we lost so long ago.
If people would look for what they need and create that from within, the world would be a better place. We would not keep operating from the illusion that there is something outside of us that can make us happy, because happiness comes from within.
I worked with a client who presented with very deep problems, many related to PTSD. She was stuck in fear and saw the world in that image. She perceived that she was in an abusive relationship. She now talks about how she is coming from this place of happiness within, even seeing her husband shifting into being more joyful:
I'm loving my life for the first time . . . living with gratitude and grace.
Experiencing happiness within and reflecting it to others, seeing it all around me.
Trusting in the Universe.
I am even seeing positive changes in my husband.
This client agrees with me that when we change within ourselves, the world reflects that change. As a matter of fact, the world reflects whatever is going on within us.
Change is an inside job!
I work with my clients to help them learn to work with Parts of themselves, rather than doing things to try to get rid of these Parts that have been there with a deeper underlying purpose and positive intention. This allows for the ability to get beyond resistance and opens us to positive transformation.