12. Creating Change Using Our Inner Resources
Change comes from accessing and utilizing our own inner resources to find resolution to our problems and move toward our goals. I want to share ways to put this into practice so that you can create changes you want in your life.
When people experience repeating unconscious patterns with self-critical internal dialogue, this can contribute to feeling depressed. The Part of us that generates this response of self-blame is learned, typically acquired at a young age. This response was established as a way to try to meet deeper inner needs, in the best way it could at the time, based on when, where, and how it was developed. This pattern is also learned from adults/parents who interact with us and impart these messages, with their own good intentions.
Often, children hear their parents say things like: “What’s wrong with you for not being able to _____.” The children then model their parent’s behavior and attitudes because when we are young, our parents are our world and our best hope for survival. Our parents have to be right in our minds for our own perceived sense of safety and wellbeing. These tapes become internalized and get wired into our neurology, becoming the stories we tell ourselves for the rest of our lives!
It is so important to learn and implement skills and tools to help us have choices regarding the tapes that are playing in our heads. As one of my great teachers, Richard Bandler, the co-founder of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), used to say: “We want to be driving our own bus. Not sitting in the back, getting driven around to who knows where.”
When we become aware of our thoughts, for example our inner self-critical voice, we realize the tapes are a result of our own doing and are really not useful. Using this example, the inner self-critical voice is contributing to our low self-worth and feelings of depression. This is an unconsciously generated response with a deeper purpose and positive intention. It is not a logically and consciously generated response. That is why it doesn’t make sense! These patterns are trying to get us to do something or be some way that is different and better; however, what it is doing, in reality, is the exact opposite and incapacitating us.
It is useful to recognize this unwanted pattern as a survival mechanism trying to help us experience a sense of inner worth or peace. Well, we can see that beating ourselves up for making a mistake does not help us feel good about ourselves. So, why do we keep repeating this pattern and response? Because, it is unconsciously generated. It is not logical or rational. It does what it does to try to get what it needs and if it doesn’t work, it does more of the same. (I repeat this in many of my articles, because it is worth repeating: “We keep doing the same thing over and over expecting different results! The definition of insanity.”)
It does not work to take away these thoughts, feelings, behaviors and beliefs. When we work with these thoughts, feelings and behaviors, we find out what the positive intentions have been and are able to access our inner resources and have the experience of what the Part has wanted. This is what helps us have choices to be able to stop doing things and being ways that no longer serve us.