Changes by Choice:
Broad-Based Options for Recovery
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January 31, 2012
You Mean I Can't Have My Cake and Eat It Too?
I confess I am writing this entry a few days later than I had initially intended. I wanted to do it on Sunday but we had one of those warm, sunny, crystal-clear days that makes you feel guilty if you stay inside, and the captain of my tennis team invited us out for practice, so I rededicated the time I’d set aside for it. (Justification: Sometimes you have to build up your “fun reserve” in order to come back to your work re-energized.)
It is difficult to accept the fact that time is finite and there is only so much we can fit into any given day. I couldn’t play tennis and write the blog on top of reading the paper, enjoying breakfast with my husband, and attending to all the typical Sunday household tasks. Such constraints remind me of when I was nearing the end of grad school and grappling with a job decision. One of my mentors said, “Jane, you can do anything you want; but you can’t do everything you want.” Time is finite; one has to choose.
Last week I met with a client celebrating his sixth anniversary in recovery and we talked about what it takes to maintain sobriety and make healthy behavior changes. He said, “You have to give something up to get something else. People don’t want to give up stuff, to make a sacrifice. We’re conditioned to gain and gather, not give up.” In the last six years this man has gained a promotion at work, a stronger relationship with his spouse, and an increasing sense of self-respect. But to do it he had to give up the promise of euphoria and excitement and the elixir of forgetting and escape. The tipping point for him was the threat of losing his job after being caught under the influence at work. He chose to make a change rather than be forced to take a loss for the sake of keeping what he didn’t need anyway.
Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” that old standard of middle-school English classes, has much more resonance in later life when this finiteness of time and opportunity becomes more apparent.
Frost once summed up this poem in five wise words: “Every choice implies a loss.” In deciding for one thing, we must decide against another.
William Miller, PhD, is a psychologist and researcher best known for his development of Motivational Interviewing, a therapeutic style that replaces old-school confrontation and labeling with efforts to enhance a client’s internal motivation to change. He posits that what keeps a person stuck is not so much “denial” of problems caused by a compulsive behavior as ambivalence about what will be lost in giving it up or doubts about being able to achieve the desired new state. Miller believes ambivalence decreases when a person honestly weighs out what will be gained and lost and becomes convinced that the change is important. The person also must feel confident that he or she is capable of carrying out the change. Both of these are crucial steps. Resolving ambivalence and building confidence can be accomplished by talking with someone with experience in these areas, getting it out of one’s head and into the open.
Logically, if something is important to us, we’ll commit time and energy to it, and if we accept that time is finite, we'll cut back on activities that get in the way. We then need to clearly identify what is important, what we most value. I recommend an exercise called “The Values Card Sort,” developed by Dr. Miller. It comprises a list of some 80 values – such as Health, Love, Power, Wealth, Service, Friendship – that you can cut out and sort into three groups: Very Important, Important, and Not Important. Next, you narrow down the Very Important stack to your top ten values, and finally rank those from one to ten. I recommend you do this according to what is most important to you, not what you think your family, friends, or society would say should be. You can find the materials for the exercise here:
http://casaa.unm.edu/inst/Personal Values Card Sort.pdf
Once you have your top ten values decided, ask: Am I living in accordance with these goals or characteristics? Am I spending my time on activities that promote growth in these areas? If not, why not? What has to go? You can do anything you want; but you can’t do everything you want.
This exercise can help clarify what your priorities are, which can help resolve that ambivalence dilemma. But what if you are lacking in the confidence department? You know you want to change but you doubt you can? We’ll consider that next week. Now I am off to tennis practice, because Health, Mastery, and Friendship are in my top ten values list and getting better at this fun game fits all three categories!
Jane B. Finch, LCSW
January 31, 2012
You Mean I Can't Have My Cake and Eat It Too?
I confess I am writing this entry a few days later than I had initially intended. I wanted to do it on Sunday but we had one of those warm, sunny, crystal-clear days that makes you feel guilty if you stay inside, and the captain of my tennis team invited us out for practice, so I rededicated the time I’d set aside for it. (Justification: Sometimes you have to build up your “fun reserve” in order to come back to your work re-energized.)
It is difficult to accept the fact that time is finite and there is only so much we can fit into any given day. I couldn’t play tennis and write the blog on top of reading the paper, enjoying breakfast with my husband, and attending to all the typical Sunday household tasks. Such constraints remind me of when I was nearing the end of grad school and grappling with a job decision. One of my mentors said, “Jane, you can do anything you want; but you can’t do everything you want.” Time is finite; one has to choose.
Last week I met with a client celebrating his sixth anniversary in recovery and we talked about what it takes to maintain sobriety and make healthy behavior changes. He said, “You have to give something up to get something else. People don’t want to give up stuff, to make a sacrifice. We’re conditioned to gain and gather, not give up.” In the last six years this man has gained a promotion at work, a stronger relationship with his spouse, and an increasing sense of self-respect. But to do it he had to give up the promise of euphoria and excitement and the elixir of forgetting and escape. The tipping point for him was the threat of losing his job after being caught under the influence at work. He chose to make a change rather than be forced to take a loss for the sake of keeping what he didn’t need anyway.
Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” that old standard of middle-school English classes, has much more resonance in later life when this finiteness of time and opportunity becomes more apparent.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth…
Frost once summed up this poem in five wise words: “Every choice implies a loss.” In deciding for one thing, we must decide against another.
William Miller, PhD, is a psychologist and researcher best known for his development of Motivational Interviewing, a therapeutic style that replaces old-school confrontation and labeling with efforts to enhance a client’s internal motivation to change. He posits that what keeps a person stuck is not so much “denial” of problems caused by a compulsive behavior as ambivalence about what will be lost in giving it up or doubts about being able to achieve the desired new state. Miller believes ambivalence decreases when a person honestly weighs out what will be gained and lost and becomes convinced that the change is important. The person also must feel confident that he or she is capable of carrying out the change. Both of these are crucial steps. Resolving ambivalence and building confidence can be accomplished by talking with someone with experience in these areas, getting it out of one’s head and into the open.
Logically, if something is important to us, we’ll commit time and energy to it, and if we accept that time is finite, we'll cut back on activities that get in the way. We then need to clearly identify what is important, what we most value. I recommend an exercise called “The Values Card Sort,” developed by Dr. Miller. It comprises a list of some 80 values – such as Health, Love, Power, Wealth, Service, Friendship – that you can cut out and sort into three groups: Very Important, Important, and Not Important. Next, you narrow down the Very Important stack to your top ten values, and finally rank those from one to ten. I recommend you do this according to what is most important to you, not what you think your family, friends, or society would say should be. You can find the materials for the exercise here:
http://casaa.unm.edu/inst/Personal Values Card Sort.pdf
Once you have your top ten values decided, ask: Am I living in accordance with these goals or characteristics? Am I spending my time on activities that promote growth in these areas? If not, why not? What has to go? You can do anything you want; but you can’t do everything you want.
This exercise can help clarify what your priorities are, which can help resolve that ambivalence dilemma. But what if you are lacking in the confidence department? You know you want to change but you doubt you can? We’ll consider that next week. Now I am off to tennis practice, because Health, Mastery, and Friendship are in my top ten values list and getting better at this fun game fits all three categories!
Jane B. Finch, LCSW
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