Changing pains.

You already have everything you need within you; everything to be happy and satisfied. It doesn't matter where you are or what you have - happiness is a state of mind. 
...And blahblahblah.

You've probably heard something similar, as this is commonly repeated over and over again amongst coaches, therapists and spiritual guides.

Unfortunately, this is not very motivating, depending on just how deep shit you are in. Yes, excuse my language here, but really - some of us are, or have been, in deep shit. So deep, in fact, that being told that we should "just be happy" because it is a state of mind, only adds to frustration, as we are very much aware already of the fact that we may have everything, yet we are just not able to connect - to be happy. Everything looks great on a piece of paper: handsome spouse that may adore you, cute kids, a suburban house the envy of Martha Stewart, and your ass is still pretty hot. Or, granted, you may not have any of this. It doesn't really matter, because the thing here is, that whether having it or not, you can be equally messed up and unhappy. The unique obstacle with the client who has nothing, however, is that this person will tend to live in the future - a dream world - where they convince themselves that if only they had x, y and z, everything in their life would be perfect. Perfection - always this search for perfection. A concept that does not exist thus keeps us prisoner on  the treadmill of life; going nowhere, but aiming for perfection by constantly upping the pace til we pass out from exhaustion. 

But because we convince ourselves that happiness is to be found in something external that we have yet to experience, we are very resistant to wake up and change before having experienced having everything and still being unhappy.

So what do both types of clients do - the one that has everything and the one that may be lacking certain aspects of whatever it is society tells us we need to be happy? 

They eventually end up on some therapist's couch and will hear a line somewhat similar to "you know, happiness is a state of mind, you already have everything within you!" Although, I too am guilty of saying this line - because it is true - it is imperative that this is followed up with a hands-on goal setting strategy as in: what's you current DOABLE next step to change. If you are stuck in quicksand in an environment that is contaminated by addiction to vanity matters and materialism - and your friends all have boob jobs and botox done for fun on their lunchbreaks; spending all their free time talking about the size of their asses and getting one manicure after the next; it's going to take a lot of work and constant struggle to swim against the stream. And if you are already weak, you're most likely not going to make it. 

Even though you already have everything you need within - all your muscles to swim against the flow are there, but if you have not used them for ages, you need to start out swimming in shallow water and not jumping head on into the pacific. That's how people drown - when they don't match where they are at with what they are capable of dealing with stress wise. 

You can only tolerate so much pain at any given time if you are to make it to the other side.

And sometimes that means you need to cut out people, places and spaces that are toxic for you right now - because you are just too vulnerable to deal with everything simultaneously during times of change. Again, you may want to go back to these places and people later on when you have developed a thicker skin (or you may not), where they no longer penetrate through to your soul and weaken your core being.

Nothing has to be forever. Nothing is forever.

Timing, however, is vital.

When you know what you want and what you don't want in life, it's time to come up with a step by step action plan. A therapist telling you to just be happy in the skin you are in is not leading you anywhere, unfortunately. Thus, it is not surprising that most people keep going to a therapist foreverever - and yet, they are not changing anything in their life, but adding to the size of their shrink's wallet. 

Although it may be nice to pay someone to listen to all your whining and complaining; you still end up with a sense of being a failure because you get told a message of that "you just need to be happy in the skin you're in" - just like that.

As much as I do adore kids games and tricks - magic is for kids only. This message of that suddenly you will wake up one day and be able to draw on your inner strengths is magical thinking.

Change takes action, planning and analyzing your current strengths and weaknesses to determine what is the next step for you right NOW! Yes, change is not always comfortable, but it is also not supposed to be so painful that you faint and numb out, or relapse into (self)destructive behaviors as a mechanism to sedate yourself out of the pain of change.

For successful change I have found the SWOT model to be of dire value when dealing with behavioral changes. I will have this tool available for download under "Health Tools" once The Nutrition Doctor's web portal is up and running end of August - a link will be here on my blog, so stay tuned!