The Six Steps to Change. Step 4: Catch Yourself in the Act.

"The important thing is this: To be able to at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we would become."

- Charles DuBois

We all have an ideal self that we want to, or believe that we are projecting out into the world. We'd love to be seeing as caring, competent, understanding, efficient, and effective…. Each of us has our own list. Many times in our lives we embarrassing come to the realization that we're not all that we'd like to be. More often than not we come to these realizations in our relationships with others whether that be a child, a spouse, or a significant other. For example every parent wants to be the perfect parent. They want the best for their children and want to feel confident as a parent.

Unfortunately, there is no parenting school that everyone is required to attend and our learning as parents comes from our own experiences as children with our own parents who also never had a class. Much gets passed on from generation to generation including our skills at relating with others. As we have talked about previously, the learning we have assimilated is not always the best. Nevertheless, we still want the best; believe that we are doing the best, and are floored when we come to find that what we believe is not what is actually happening. Somehow the outcome we had hoped for has been replaced with a less than desirable one. When we come to these realizations it's often like getting hit over the head with a sledgehammer. Or, it is like the old show "Smile Your On Candid Camera" in which people are put in silly situations, do silly things as a result and then come to realize that the whole world has been watching you make a fool out of yourself. Ouch!

This happens all too often when parents are trying to work with their teenagers about limits, responsibilities, and consequences. Parenting skills are put to the absolute test. You may try to have a conversation about a teen having come home 2 hours late on a school night or you may try to open up a conversation about your fear that your adolescent is experimenting with drugs. But, if your suspicions, fears, anxiety, or frustration leads to threats, or anger, or accusatory tones, it is likely that those conversations will lead to escalation and a complete breakdown in communication. Once again, this happens with the best of intentions and in all likelihood you're not even aware of what you are doing during the conversation. Here is where a purposeful, proactive Catching Yourself in the Act exercise can come in handy.

In this case I might ask you to do daily reflections on your interactions with your teens. I would ask that you notice what you are feeling in your body during those conversations, what you are thinking, and what the results of the interactions are. Then, after a period of time, I would also ask that you notice if there are any patterns in the kind of communications that you are having with your teen. Any new awareness? Once we have a sense of what your pattern looks like, and you have a chance to begin to "Catch Yourself", we can begin to work on what new patterns you would like to see and what behaviors you might need to learn to change that pattern. For example, you might need to learn listening skills or centering skills to help you remain calm during the conversations.

Catching Yourself, is key to being able to begin to make new choices. Once we begin to notice our patterns and the results of our unwanted behavior we can begin to literally change our minds and see situations with new eyes.

Step 3 - Q it Up!

"What we see depends mainly on what we look for." --John Lubbock

It’s typically hard for us to notice our blind spots until we walk into a wall! In using the Quadrants we can begin to take stock of where we spend most of our time and what areas we are strong or weak in. Q-ing it up means taking a look at our roadmap and noticing where we are so that we can begin to plan how we’re going to get where it is we’d like to be.

If we take a look at our inner territory in QI and find that we tend to be hard on ourselves and others we can begin to learn new strategies and practices to help reduce the stress caused by our nagging inner voice and the damage that we do when we turn that inner critic loose on others. We can learn to understand where this little gremlin came from and ways to create a new and different voice that is more supportive and helpful in relationships.

If we’re not taking care of ourselves and constantly under a lot of stress due to our poor lifestyle choices and/or work life and environment, we can begin to create new habits and behaviors that support our wellness and make changes in how we schedule our time so that we’re there and more available at home and in our relationships. This would involve taking a hard look at how we do ourselves in QII (behaviors) and QIV (environment).

Creating balance around the Quadrants leads to a certain synergy in which our blind spots are now open to the world and we’re engaging with others and taking care of ourselves in a way that allows for more flexibility, peace, and openness to being with and understanding others.

For families that have been in crisis for any length of time it’s fairly typical that the parents have given up some of the things that in the past have supported a healthier lifestyle and less stressful home environment. Having a young person on drugs and alcohol and making poor choices increases the stress levels in parents and decreases the likelihood that they will go for that run, go out for a dinner together, attend a yoga class or any of the ways that couples maintain their health and wellness in a way that let’s them meet the demands of a busy family life let alone one with a teenager in crisis.

Each of the Quadrants may be seen as areas for growth with specific kinds of skills that can be worked on and improved. In Quadrant I for example I might learn to be more effective dealing with my feeling by becoming familiar with the Emotional Intelligence literature. To develop more of sense of peace in my life I might take up a meditation practice (Quadrant II). In Quadrant III I can learn to be more effective in my relationships with others by learning to read body language and improving my communication skills using a program like Non Violent Communication. In Quadrant IV I can give myself more time and relaxation by reducing my connection to my Blackberry.

So, Where in the map do you tend to spend time? Do you feel effective in that domain in your life? What would you like to improve?

In Step 4 we’ll begin to learn how to catch ourselves in the act (real time) of being ineffective and see what’s going on that can give us clues as to how to be more effective in the future.

Step 2 to Change - Know Thyself

"Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others."
-- Harriet Goldhor Lerner

It all begins with us. The more we know about ourselves, the better able we are to understand what makes us tick or presses our buttons (to use a couple of clichés) the better able we are to make the choices that can lead to feeling different and to having deeper more satisfying and productive relationships with others.

We all learn to be who we are in life very early. Our behavior, attitudes, beliefs, and responses to the world are shaped by our experiences as infants and, by the time we reach adolescence or adulthood, we’re no longer aware of what shaped us we’re only aware of whether or not our behaviors are leading to achieving our goals or a happy satisfying life.

The way we’ve come to be and the way that we respond to the world results in specific outcomes. In the laboratory of life it’s pretty clear that, even though in our hearts and minds we may want one outcome, that our behavior patterns may be leading to another and until we note the disconnect between the two and begin to systematically change our operating systems nothing will change.

For example, if I grew up in a household in which my every move was criticized and evaluated I might grow up inhabited by an inner voice that plays the part of my parents and continues to judge and evaluate my behavior as an adult. I may also unwittingly allow this grouch of a voice to act out on those closest to me creating tension, anger, and frustration between that person and me. I may be doing my honest best to have a loving caring relationship but my ingrained pattern of judging and criticizing may be having quite another impact on my relationship. There’s a conflict between my desire for love and caring and my tendency to be critical and I may not even be aware that it’s going on inside my own head let alone spilling out into my relationships with others.

The Integral Model provides a map of both our inner and our outer territory and permits us to see the relationship between each of the quadrants. It also provides us with a graphic representation of the interconnectedness between our behaviors, our attitudes, the impact of our relationships, and how the world that we’ve created all coalesce to maintain what we’re getting in the world. If for example the mean gremlin that I got from my family of origin (Quadrant III – My relationships and Culture), has led me to be judgmental about myself and others (Quadrant I - My Interior), and results in me being outwardly critical of even those whom I most love and care about (Quadrant II – My behavior), I may create an environment in which there’s tension and unease and where no one feels safe from my critique’s (Quadrant IV – Environment). Understanding these interrelationships provides me with some choices and options about how to go about changing the flavor of each quadrant in a way that leads to the world I truly want.

The 4 Quadrants are a snapshot of yourself and your world. Get to know that snapshot and, having a picture of how you “do yourself” in the world, begin to create a new one. Learn to make different choices in each of the quads and be the architect of a new life.

Next time we'll look at how to Q it Up! How to use the quads to create that new life.

6 Steps to Change - Use Your Imagination

“Your imagination is life’s preview of coming attractions”
- Einstein

When we’re stuck in the middle of a difficult situation in our lives it’s often difficult to imagine how things will ever change. All we can think of is how the heck did I get here? Well, the first step to change actually begins with using our imagination. What I mean here is that we have to have a picture of how we would like things to be; some kind of meaningful goal for us to shoot for. It might seem at the time as though it’s impossible but nevertheless go ahead, dream on!

Perhaps after years of struggling with a young person who is addicted to drugs or alcohol you’ve lost your hope of ever having a healthy happy child again or a happy loving family. Everything that’s happened has stretched and stressed your family to the point where you’re happy just to get through the day without a major catastrophe let alone hugs and kisses at the end of the day.

Well, there’s hope, and HOPE begins with daring to have a picture in your head, a goal, that you can strive towards. Once you have the goal, once you can imagine a different tomorrow, you can begin to take some steps to reach your goal. It’s no different than any other goal. Set your sights, get to work, and with the help of a coach or a therapist, make a plan.

What got you to this point was a set of beliefs about how the world operates. Those beliefs led to specific behaviors that you hoped would get you the results you wanted. Unfortunately, those results, though consistent with your beliefs, may not have been the ones you intended or would have wished for. I may want to have a wonderful relationship with my son or daughter but believe that in order to have that relationship that they need to think or behave exactly like I think they should. If they do then it would indicate that they’re on the same page and understand what I want from them. If they don’t I may conversely believe that they’re obviously being difficult and trying to push my buttons. In order to get their attention and in order to ensure that they live what I believe to be appropriate productive lives, I may push, punish, and persevere in my attempts to get them to see that my way is the right way. What does that get us? Anger, distance, and probably anything but the behavior I wanted.

So, what is your goal? Use your imagination! How would you like your family to be? What feelings do you want to experience in relationship with members of your family that you're not experiencing now?

Next time we'll begin looking at how to catch ourselves in the act when we're using behaviors that don't get us what we want.

Building Blocks Part II

Understanding comes from communication and transforms us. Listening and truly wanting to know the world from the perspective of another without judgment gives us the opportunity to “see” the world with new eyes; to literally see the world from the eyes of the person that we’re talking to. This is different than making assumptions or inferences of about what we believe someone else’s behavior means when filtered through our own personal biases. We can only know the world from the spot on which we stand and in order to know more about the world we need to be able to see and hear the perspectives of others. Letting go of our assumptions about someone else’s behavior we can broaden our perspective, and come to agreements based on shared interpretations and shared meaning. From here we can have new agreements, and learn to trust. Win-win, and win-lose solutions to problems often arise from finding a way to compromise and live with another person or group rather than creating a new and shared perspective that transforms both parties or groups. In order to be transformed we have to be able to rise above the system we are embedded in. When we are caught up in, or run by, the picture of the world that we’ve come to know, it can be difficult or impossible to see, let alone understand, the perspective of another. In order to truly understand we need to be able rise above and look back at the system we live within to truly see how it drives our behavior and inhibits our ability grow and change.

Commitment – Dealing with someone who is in crisis is a very stressful. Making changes in one life, especially difficult changes, is also hard work. In both instances it takes not only hard work but a commitment to stay the course even when things are at their worse. Without a commitment it’s difficult to carry out the actions day in and day out that will lead to real change. Real change comes from a different outlook, different attitudes, and different behaviors. It’s helpful during the most difficult times to ask which outcome we would like. Do we want our family to remain in crisis and pain or do we want a happier and more loving home. It’s easy to not do the work of change but harder to live with the outcomes that arise from that choice. Nevertheless, and with both the best intentions and the realization of what the outcomes of our choices might be, when faced with difficult struggles day in and day out it’s can be very difficult to hang in there. This is especially true when our commitment is not just to our hard work but also to the financial burden that comes with it and often times the toll that it all takes on other members of the family. Remember though that our commitments lead to actions in the form of new behaviors that can result in new and better outcomes for us and for our families.

Next time we’ll begin to take a look at the 6 steps you can learn to create the kind of change that can help a family regain health.

4 Essential Building Blocks For Change

Now that we’ve gone through the 4 Quadrants, and before I start introducing the 7 steps that I use to help families move from crisis to a healthy happier family and a happy whole child free from the grip of alcohol or drugs, I’d like to take a little time to underscore the importance of 4 building blocks that are the foundation of any self development or self growth work. These are especially true when working with families where each individual member is an integral part of the larger family system and each family members behavior impacts everyone else. The 4 building blocks are Compasssion, Communication, Understanding, and Commitment. We'll start by taking a brief look at the first two.

Change, especially when it means taking a hard look at ourselves, and our behavior, is hard. That’s why these 4 foundational concepts are so important to the overall growth and health of individuals and the family. That’s also why it’s important to have a system that systematically supports each person’s efforts to change their lives.

The first concept is Compassion. Change often requires that we look deeply into ourselves and acknowledge parts that we may not like. However being angry with ourselves often impedes our growth rather than helps it. Acceptance and compassion for ourselves is a much more effective first step towards change. Compassion acknowledges our humanness and allows us to make a decision to try new and different behaviors or attitudes. A good friend of mine use to tell me that more than anything we’re all subject to the human frailties. We all grow up and learn how to be in the world, and for better or worse, what we learn is who we become.

Knowing that, if given the choice, we would all choose loving, caring, and supportive relationships in our lives provides us with the opportunity to choose those outcomes when we face our shortcomings. Pema Chodren talks of our soft spots. This is that place in our hearts where we feel our frailties, our humanness, and our pain. It is from this place that we are able, if we allow ourselves to feel it, to connect with others and to understand their humanness and frailties. Staying in touch with our soft spot we can be open to being compassionate with others in our families when there are problems and when they are behaving in destructive ways. Each person wants the best but may not know how to have it. Knowing that and connecting with them from that place rather than from anger or frustration is the beginning of the path to change.

One of my favorite sayings is that “the problem with Communication is the belief that it actually occurs” What does this mean? Well, you’ve probably noticed that when we have conversations with others it’s not unusual for people to be more concerned with what they’re going to say next than with hearing, much less understanding, what someone else is saying. Communication is often a series of monologues rather than dialogue. Communication is often more about getting ones point across or defending ones position than it is hearing what someone else has to say and coming to understand in a new way who that person is or what their life is like. Learning to listen and understand are skills that can be learned and are essential to change, understanding, and caring. It’s hard, but possible, to learn how to be more present when talking to someone, even about difficult situations, to be present rather than thinking about what has been or worrying about the future.

Next time we'll take a look at Understanding and Commitment.