Somehow we expect that when we give something up or start a new behavior, it should be easy and we should get immediate results.  But — think about it — if it were that easy, wouldn’t it be happening already?  The truth is that it’s hard.  Like really, really hard.  The good news is that the difficulty is TEMPORARY.

So…what’s required?

1.  Stamina:  Success is going to take a lot of stamina.  Do not underestimate the amount of energy that is going to be required.  It’s easy to lose weight at the fancy spa that serves low calorie delicious organic meals while you take in the beautiful scenery surrounding you.  It’s not so easy at the end of a stressful day when you’re tired and hungry and without even intending it somehow find yourself sitting in the McDonald’s drive-thru. Trying to live a new way requires extra energy….and when you’re depleted, it’s fairly automatic to revert to the old ways because falling into old habits really doesn’t require much effort.

2.  Preparation, patience, practice and persistence:  Capturing your hopes and dreams is a marathon – not a sprint.  Changing a behavior is the equivalent of participating in a distance race.  What if I asked you to get up right now and run a marathon.  Go.  Yes — right now! With only the clothes you are wearing right now and only the shoes on your feet. Ready…set….26.2 miles…GO!

But before you start running…even if you are ready and willing to take my challenge, even if you’re in great shape — even if you’re wearing a track suit –you probably aren’t going to make it. How will you know when you’ve gone the whole way? I haven’t shown you the map. How will you fuel yourself? I didn’t give you any energy bars. And what about water? Clearly, taking me up on my challenge isn’t a wise idea. But notice, you don’t feel bad about yourself nor has your self-esteem suffered because you can’t run my imaginary marathon right now…because you know that it is a silly request.  You’re fine because…well, you know that asking you to run a marathon without preparation is ridiculous, dangerous and probably impossible. You don’t have expectations on yourself that you would succeed.

Yet, when you make the decision to lose weight…or to stop buying things you can’t afford…or stop the affair…or stop drinking…or start writing your book…or start exercising…or start your business… or go back to school – or whatever you hope for……you beat yourself up because you’re not doing it or changing immediately.  Expecting perfection and immediate results is like ordering yourself to run a marathon right now.  You are not operating under the right mindset because achieving dreams is a marathon.  And if you are mad at yourself, you aren’t being realistic or compassionate with yourself.  You might as well be asking ourselves to run a marathon completely untrained, unprepared and unsupported.  You can’t do it, not because you’re failure or loser.  You can’t do it because that is not the way you are wired.  You aren’t built to go from 0 to 26.2.  But you ARE built to go from 0 to 1 and from 1 to 2 or 3 and so on until 26.2 or higher.

3.  Action and Inertia:  I ran a marathon once. It was a harrowing experience. At the starting gate I was high on life thinking — “I’ve got this! I can do this!” and felt really proud of myself for taking on such a challenge. I felt at one with everyone at the race and all of the planets and stars were aligned for me.  When the race started, I worked my plan — one step at a time, taking one step after another. I was so proud of myself…Yipee! Unfortunately, my elation was short-lived. Six miles into the race I was still happy, but it started to feel like work. But I persevered…and kept taking one step after the other.  At miles nine to eleven I’m still feeling pretty happy…but I’ll be honest — I wasn’t loving everyone around me as much as I did when I started and I was wondering if maybe a star or two had slipped out of alignment. But I kept on! One step…after the other.

By mile 17 I was so grumpy and not loving anybody very much including myself for taking on this really stupid endeavor. But stopping at this point wasn’t really an option. I had to keep going. One…step…after…the other.

Mile 20 saw tears and maybe even a little cursing. I was really hating every…miserable…moment. No point in stopping now though…all I could do was continue to take one step after the other.

Somewhere during mile 25 — the last mile — something magical happened. I heard the crowd cheering me on. A few minutes later I was though the finish line and there was a medal hanging around my neck! What a wonderful world! I love everything again! That dream of mine was accomplished – regardless of the thoughts in my head and my shifting mood - with one simple step…after the other.

4.  Self-Compassion:  You’re asking a lot of yourself.  You are one of the few who are willing to walk the road less traveled.  But I have a question: are you a compassionate person?  I’m guessing you would say absolutely.  Of course you are. You’re kind-hearted and loving…..to others.  What is the answer if I ask you if you are compassionate with yourself?  Not so much…huh?  I thought so.  I used to suffer from this one.  Others deserved my compassion, but I should know better or do better or be better and I never cut myself a break.  But then I learned a simple truth: “you can’t give away what you do not have.”  If you simply can’t find it in yourself to be compassionate with yourself – get help from a supportive professional counselor or life coach, because you can’t get to your hopes and dreams without having self-compassion.

5.  Faith:  I’ve heard the spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson say that “there is no such thing as a faithless person.”  To me, that means you can have faith that things will go well…or you can have faith that they won’t go well.  Faith can be in yourself, faith in these hope articles, faith in God or faith that you can do it differently – that you can choose differently.  Think about what you have faith in and re-up or perhaps move your faith to optimism, goodness and triumph.  That day of the marathon I had faith that I could cross the finish line.  I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I had faith in my training, my legs, my mind and my spirit.

I’m so excited for you as you work toward your hopes and dreams and how wonderful that they are guaranteed!!

PS

If you want more tips on how to sustain a change, read Willpower:  Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney.  It’s got all the current research on willpower and it’s well written and interesting.

However, there are some things that you may have tried in vain to change that frustrate you to no-end! You went for your goal – full out – but still, what you hoped for eluded you. You got frustrated, disgusted and mad at yourself. You felt as though you were back to square one (or worse) and you couldn’t figure out what went wrong.

That’s because with some things you have to go deeper than simply thinking and behaving differently. So, the crucial ingredient that may have prevented your success might have been:

If you don’t believe you are truly worthy of your hopes and dreams, you won’t achieve them. Ever.

How could you? Most people, if they don’t think they deserve something, push it away — sometimes without even realizing it. They just push their dream to the side, or give up, or self-sabotage, or head to their favorite drug of choice – whatever is needed to get numb because they just can’t handle that much love or goodness or feelings of accomplishment.

Most people have it backwards – they believe if they get thin enough, rich enough, have the right job, right relationship or the right degree, then they will be worthy. It’s actually the opposite – when you feel worthy, then those things that you hope for have an easier time coming to you. It still requires hard work, but you won’t push it away because you will believe that you are worthy.

So, if you don’t feel you are truly worthy and deserving of good things in your life, just because you’re you, then it’s time to heal that thought. Yes, healing is required. If you don’t believe that you are worthy – that is a wound that needs to be healed.

Think about it – babies aren’t born thinking they don’t deserve to be cared for – they’re not thinking, “I hope I am not inconveniencing these lovely people – I don’t want to bother them – I don’t deserve to get my needs met – they look busy and I don’t really matter.” No! They are wailing their little sweet heads off to get swaddled, cuddled, loved, fed etc. When you were a baby you knew you were magnificent and absolutely worthy.

Somewhere along the way, you learned that you were not worthy and you don’t deserve good things. For some, this horrible lesson was reinforced everyday of childhood. I’m telling you – you LEARNED that and it WOUNDED you. And now it’s time to roll your sleeves up and heal because your Hopes are waiting for you and they are Guaranteed – but only if you truly know that you deserve them.

Healing the part of you that doesn’t accept that you are worthy is not just “a next step.” It’s your life’s work. You must figure out how to accept the fact that you deserve everything you wish for because if you are wishing it,then that means deep down a part of you DOES believe that you deserve it. It’s time to work with that other, wounded part of you the doesn’t believe it – the part that is wounded, hurt and lost.

The most efficient way to do this work is with a skilled professional counselor. Of course, you will be doing the work, but the counselor will guide you and give you tips and tools along the way. The counselor you work with needs to be really good and who walks the walk. Be selective and trust your intuition. A good counselor is one that you feel safe with and click with. The person should really “get you” and most importantly, your life is getting better as a result of your relationship. Remember that you are a consumer of counseling services and you get to have the results that you’re after, otherwise, what’s the point?

If you are dealing with an addiction, the 12 Steps are amazing and there is a chair waiting for you at AA, OA, GA, NA, etc. And it’s free!!! I personally think everyone should work the steps (they are spiritual principles you will find in most religious traditions, but written in easy to follow steps – they will change your life). If you are in a close relationship with someone with an addiction, then that gives you a chair at an Al-Anon meetings and you can work the 12 Steps there. One of the great sayings is try the 12 Steps for 6 to 12 months and if your life isn’t much, much better, then quit and your misery will be refunded. Love it.

You could also head to your bookstore and find a title that speaks to you in the psychology, spirituality or personal growth work sections. Reading will not help – only pick up books that require action on your part and work the heck of the book. If you need a head start, the I recommend The Joy Diet by Martha Beck. Again, don’t read it – work it or you are just wasting your time. If your life isn’t changing as a result of working from books on your own, then that means that you need more assistance. You need to take greater action. Get to an appropriate 12 Step meeting (again – free!) or do what ever it takes to find a good counselor.

If you are still reading this article, then you are being called to heal. You must do this work to heal yourself. It’s time and you’re ready. I’m excited for you because what you Hope for is Guaranteed!! Take the next step toward your personal growth and healing so that you can live the life you are meant to live. What you Hope for is Guaranteed, but only if you already know that it’s true, because you are magnificent and deserve it.

This is the kind of Hope you need to have if you want your Guarantee:

1. You must a have a dream, vision or goal you want for your life.

2. You must have the know-how to accomplish your dreams, vision or goals and the resolve to accomplish them.

3. You must have the confidence that you are actually able to accomplish your dreams, vision and goals.

You know from Part One that the life you are living is an effect — and the preceding cause of the effect are the choices you have made. So, if you change your choices, you can absolutely change your life.

Unfortunately, changing your choices is really, really hard. For every part of you that wants to change there is also a part of you that is doesn’t want to. And that part of you will cling to they way things are.

If you can’t change your choices, then your life won’t change either and you won’t be able to fulfill your dreams. It may very well be that the reason you haven’t been able to achieve all of your dreams is because you couldn’t change — which means you couldn’t apply all three of the crucial aspects of Hope I describe above.

To be successful and achieve your dreams you need to apply all three Hope aspects.

Consider what happens if you apply only one:

1. You have a dream, vision or goal you want for your life.

Let’s say you are sick of being overweight and decide to lose 20 pounds. You have your dream and you hope it comes true (that is aspect #1). That’s a start! Except now it’s 7 PM, you just got home from work and you’re starving for dinner. You open the freezer for the Lean Cuisine but five minutes later find yourself in front of the TV eating Cherry Garcia right out of the tub. Having a dream clearly isn’t enough — and just having a dream is almost worse, because you and I both know how terrible you after you finish the ice cream. Now you’re not only overweight, but you feel like a failure too.

But don’t give up! Let’s see what happens if we add another Hope Aspect:

1. You have a dream, vision or goal you want for your life + 2. You have the know-how to accomplish your dreams, visions or goals and you resolve to accomplish them =

You want to lose 20 pounds ( This is aspect#1) AND you decide to figure out how to lose weight (this is aspect #2). You go to the weight loss section of the book store, you get a couple of books about healthy weight loss, you go to a Weight Watcher’s meeting or join an online diet program, you figure out an exercise program. You really start to understand how this can work and you make a great start applying what you’ve learned. Then comes somebody’s birthday at work and you’ve been feeling kind of down lately. You know the having the cake isn’t in line with what you’ve learned about losing weight, but you think to yourself that this is just too hard for you to sustain and you basically give up. You have the cake and then some more cake thinking that maybe you are just not cut out to be a thin person and that you knew you’d give up anyhow and who were you to think you could lose weight?  And that is just the beginning of the negative self-talk.

So having the hope and then figuring out how to accomplish it is not enough to defend against the part of you that overeats. Let’s see what happens when you add aspect #3 to aspect #1 and #2

1. You have a dream, vision or goal you want for your life + 2. You have the know-how to accomplish your dreams, vision or goals and you resolve to accomplish them + 3. You have the confidence that you are actually able to accomplish your dreams, vision and goals =

Let’s say everything is the same in the above scenario, except after you eat a piece of cake you don’t beat yourself up, but you remember that this journey of losing weight is going to have it’s difficult points and that sometimes you will give in, but that you know that you can do this. You know that if you put your mind to this, that you really can do it. You are determined and know that nothing will stop you. If you keep failing, you will continue to learn more about why – maybe you hire a counselor or coach to help you figure out what gets in your way, but you won’t give up because even though it is hard – you got this!

Imagine…if you approached all of the things you wanted with all three aspects of Hope – there is nothing you couldn’t accomplish! When you live with that kind of gusto and determination, what you Hope for is Guaranteed.

But there is even more to the story. I believe there is one more aspect of Hope that is crucial! And….you’ll learn about it in the next part (Part Three) in this series. And in Part Four, I will give you more proof that you really are just a few steps away from beginning the journey to achieving all of your dreams.

Resource: Brown, Brene (2010). The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to be and Embrace Who You Are.

It’s true if you have all the trappings of a successful life and have “nothing to complain about,” yet you feel an emptiness inside.  It’s true if your life doesn’t completely suck, but it also doesn’t make your heart sing either.   And it’s true if things are going pretty well, but you have a few things that you would like to be different.  You deserve to live fully and experience what you want out of life it’s what you are meant to do – and you know that to your core.

We are not supposed to “go through the motions” of life.  We are supposed to fully live it with all of our hearts and you – whoever you are – no matter how lost, lonely and afraid you are – no matter what you’ve done or what’s been done to you – no matter how many times you’ve tried and failed – no matter who you’ve lost – no matter how much pain you carry – no matter what – you still get to Hope and What You Hope for – deep, deep down inside – is Guaranteed.  There are no exceptions.

Notice how your energy has changed since you’ve been reading this.  What you’re feeling is a spark of Hope and it is alive and well inside you.   (If you happen to be angry or annoyed at what you’re reading, then most likely you are still thinking you’re the exception and you’re too broken or too dark or too far gone.  That’s okay.  It’s not true, but it’s okay that you still think that.  But, I have good news for you: you are still reading and that means that Hope is still in there somewhere – it’s just hard to get to right now.  That’s okay – Hope will find it’s way back to you).

I am here to tell you that you don’t ever have to feel hopeless again because you absolutely – 100% – can create a life that is full of purpose and that brings you peace, joy and the good stuff you want.

So let’s get to the how I can make such an audacious claim.  This is not a “I found my Hope and got the Guarantee and so can you!” statement (although that is true).  And I don’t make that proclamation because my work as a counselor and life coach has allowed me to witness it happen over and over again in the lives of my clients (although that is also true).  I don’t think either of those is enough to make such a grand statement that the Hope that you have for your life is Guaranteed.  How do I know – and I mean know it can happen for you?

Because it is simply cause and effect.

For every cause, there’s an effect, right? So in your life what is the effect?  The effect is the life you’re living.  So that means the life you are living has a cause.  What’s the cause?  It’s your choices.   We are always, always, always living the effects of our choices.  Another way I like to say it is that we are always living the consequences (effect) of our choices (cause).

This is huge.  Read it one more time: You are always living the consequences of your choices.  So that means, if you make different choices, you can have a different effect.  That is the same thing as saying if you make choices in the direction of the life you want to live, then you will be living the life you want to live.

Voila.  Hope (Cause) is Guaranteed (Effect).

Okay, so there is more (which is why this article is only Part One in a series).  If there was ever a concept to fit the 12 Step dictum “simple, but not easy,” this is it.   And for those of you who are already beating yourself up by thinking that the bad things in your life are “your fault” – you can stop because it isn’t.  I’m talking about Hope here and Hope has nothing to do with “fault.”

In the coming weeks, I will continue to guide you through the process so that it makes more sense and so you can apply it to your life.  Feeling hopeful?  Me too!!

An Important Note:  There are exceptions to make about cause and effect and there are some consequences that no one asks for.  Children are living the effects of their parents choices and are not responsible for the effects in their lives and usually don’t have the resources to make changes.  (Interestingly, they seem to have a lot of Hope in spite of that, don’t they?)  I also understand that poverty and being a true victim of violence or violent and/or discriminatory people or systems are not choices.   Physical limitations and mental illness are not choices.  I am also not talking about accidents or natural disasters.  (However, I do know of people who have lived through some or almost all of these and have somehow found Hope.)  If you are living in a hopeless place right now – my heart truly, truly goes out to you and I will hold on to Hope on your behalf.

Magical Psychological Power #1: AND Helps You Get Unstuck

You are a complex human being with a complex psyche and you get to have more than one feeling at a time.  For instance, you can feel love AND frustration at the same time.  Like most people, you probably tend to use the word “but” instead.  Take the sentence “I am so frustrated, but I love him.”   Let’s say he makes a habit of embarrassing you in public and you’ve set a boundary around the behavior, but he continues the behavior.  You continue to get embarrassed, which leads to your frustration.  You have nowhere to go if you keep using the sentence “I am so frustrated, but I love him.”

The use of the word “but” psychologically negates the first half of the sentence.  What is implied is that yes, you are frustrated, but you are powerless to do anything because you love him.  Basically. you are telling yourself to get over your issue and that isn’t going to go well.   You won’t be solving your problem and the issue isn’t handled, which will lead to a build up of resentment in the relationship.

Now let’s insert AND instead. ” I am frustrated AND I love him.”  Yes!  Both parts are the sentence are true and exist simultaneously.  He’s doing something irritating and embarrassing AND you love this guy.  Notice how much more freeing this is.  Now you can continue to work on the boundary about the embarrassing you in public thing and love him too.  Hooray!  It doesn’t mean that it won’t be challenging (AND is good, but not that good), and now you can begin to solve your problem and move forward together instead of shutting yourself down.

Magical Psychological Power #2: AND is an Antidote to Complaining

I had a previous relationship with someone cruel, verbally abusive, manipulative  and conniving.  I used to complain about it with others while I was in it.  I would find others to say “Oh my God!” or “How horrible that he did that to you!!” Some of this was fine and I got support in a difficult time.  However, some of the complaining just prolonged the misery.  Now let’s add the magic word:  I had a previous relationship with someone cruel, verbally abusive, manipulative and conniving AND I kept staying in that relationship.  The reason AND works is not to make myself feel bad, but to actually look at MY part in the relationship – I continued to take the cruelty and verbal abuse.  He couldn’t continue the negative behaviors without my permission.  If I am just complaining, I am not moving in the direction of a solution, but continuing to stay in the problem.

AND gives you that same gift because it gives you a place to start.  You might be used to complaining about others for their bad behavior and that habit creates a lack of insight.  It reminds me of that saying about when you point a finger at someone else that there are three fingers pointing back at you.  I’m not saying that the other person is totally off the hook or what is happening is okay.  What I am saying is that it is your responsibility to look at how you might be contributing to the problem and how you allow bad behaviors to continue.

Magical Psychological Power #3: AND Helps You Know and Accept Yourself Fully

It does this by allowing you to own all aspects of yourself, even when they conflict with each other.  Remember, your psyche is vast and complex.  Taking ownership and accepting all of your feelings – possibly even celebrating them – can lead you to so much freedom and happiness.

Someone can be or feel generous AND selfish, kind AND mean, strong AND weak, helpless AND empowered, serious AND silly, shy AND outspoken, fearful AND determined,  satisfied AND unsatisfied – you get the idea.  The possbilities of paradox, dichotomies and contradictions are endless.  Owning them can help you have compassion for yourself because if you have a moment when you are not perfect or if you’re thoughtless or you’ve gotten it wrong, you can remember that you are so much more than that and all you have to do is reach for your new favorite word.

Actually that’s not true.  You can become less of who you are instead.  You can continue to diminish yourself.  You can continue in your mess, your misery, your drama, your addiction, and/or your unhealthy and damaging relationships. And the most dreadful part is – it will only get worse.  Like a terminal illness, it will progress and become more miserable and toxic if not treated.  You could just stay how you are and leave it to your children to do the work.  And, by the way, if you are not living fully, you are teaching your children not to live fully.  Remember, they do what you do, not what you say.  They will grow to live their own version of your and/or the other parent’s toxicity.  If you don’t break the cycle of dysfunction, it will be your ultimate legacy to your kids.  (That’s why you have to do the work because your parents did not do theirs).  This is not to make you feel guilty, it’s meant to give you that extra push to commit to do the work and to understand the choice that you are making by not doing the work.

Or you can get to work and become conscious.  Live the life you were meant to live.  Live your calling.  Live with actual love (you know the kind I mean – patient, kind, adoring, playful, fun, trusting etc.)  Live with integrity.  Experience joie de vivre – maybe for the very first time since you were an infant.  As they say, you can get bitter or you can get better.   It’s your choice.

You really can do this.  It is not some pie in the sky ideal.  If you do your personal growth work, you will become stronger, more aware, feel freer, feel whole and experience healthy relationships and true happiness.

Personal growth work can happen with or without counseling.  The benefit of counseling, however, is that you get to have the healing even faster and you you won’t have to do your work alone.  Plus, the counseling relationship in and of itself is a healing force in which you will experience what its like to be treated with kindness and respect without judgment with a genuine, authentic person.  And believe it or not, it can be fun.  And besides, how much luck are you having going it alone?  (Are you counting the unrealized promises of your self-help book collection?)

I know what I’m talking about because I have walked the road and work with amazing women who are walking the road.  Join us.

1.  We don’t know what it means to communicate effectively.

2.  We don’t know how.

3.  We don’t actually want to communicate fully.

1.  We don’t know what it means to communicate effectively.

In psychological research, we use the term “operationalize,” which means, what specifically are we doing that will cause a change?  In other words, what can be measured.  For example, let’s say a researcher has a theory that reading fitness magazines “tend to provoke depression and anxiety” (This is actually true, by the way, according to a recent study by Ann Wertz Garvin PhD – quote in “O” Magazine, October 2008).  You can’t really measure someone’s depression or anxiety, but you can measure answers on a depression assessment or measure someone’s heart rate.

So to communicate effectively, we need to know what we mean, specifically when we say we want to communicate.   You must break it down to a specific behavior change to operationalize “effective communication.”  In a nutshell, effective communication other that expressing oneself and having another person receive that expression as close to your intention as possible.  So you get to choose what you would like to express.  (I’ll explore the part about the other person to whom you are expressing in another section.)

Here are a few ways of operationalizing your communication that might be helpful to begin to communicate effectively:

• Only expressing what is true for me
• Only expressing what is really going on with me and how I’m feeling
• Decrease or stop yelling
• Decrease or stop sarcasm (an especially tough one to give up!!)
• Expressing using Non-Violent Communication (more on that later)
• Meaning what I say
• Telling those I care about how much I appreciate them
• Telling those I care about things that need to change and why
• Decrease the silent treatment
• Increase Responsibility
• Increase Optimism

Then you can add – once a day, 5 times a day, all day, every time or some other time frame that makes sense to you (i.e. no sarcasm for a whole day). You could also end each of the above with a specific person (i.e. no sarcasm to my children)

Now you have a plan.  Get specific.  Practice.  Any of the above suggestions are hallmarks of good communications skills.  Notice the word SKILLS.  I hope that is a relief to you because they are skills, you can certainly learn them and add them to your repertoire.

Try one of the above skills, name your time frame and/or your person and try it on for a week.  Keep a log of your progress.  You’ll be amazed at the improvements and healing in your relationships.

2.  We don’t know how.

For all of us, at some point we were told or we learned that it was not okay to truly express ourselves.  Notice how unselfconscious little children are.  Babies don’t think, you know, my mother is sleeping, so I should probably wait until she wakes up to communicate that I am hungry.   But then things change.  A dear friend of mine is a school counselor and she sees the difference between the unabashed kindergartners, first and second graders and the reserved 4th and 5th graders.  We learn to shut ourselves down, to hide what’s really going on from our parents, teachers, other children and relatives and then society at large.  We are taught what’s appropriate and what’s not in our own little universe.

Unfortunately, some of us get very wounded in the process and lose our voice out of necessity and sometimes in order to survive.  We even lose that voice to ourselves.  As children, we were victims and it was not our fault, but once we become adults it’s time to reclaim that voice of what’s true for us and it is our responsibility and blaming the past or others, I’ve found, is not helpful.

Notice, I use the word “lose.”  That is because your voice cannot be destroyed.  If you are still here, so is that inner voice.   You know what is true for you, what you really like, what you believe and what you want.  That voice is there.

So, once you begin to get in touch with it, how do you use it with others?  The best way when you are first starting is through what is called Non-Violent Communication which was developed by Marshall Rosenburg, PhD.  Below is a chart from his website, www.nonviolentcommunication.com that shows the 4 step process of beginning you use your voice in a way that is effective and non-threatening to others.  When expressing your truth, you use the left column and when you are listening to another, you can use the column on the right.  It takes work, however, because we aren’t used to speaking this way.  You cannot go wrong or fail when you use non-violent communication for expressing yourself.

3.  We don’t actually want to communicate fully.

The idea of communicating fully and expressing ourselves sounds great, but to really communicate fully takes a tremendous amount of courage.  Imagine if you would only speak the truth from this point forward.  No white lies, no hedging, and no lying by omission.  The thought for those new to personal growth work is terrifying.  I imagine your life would be radically different one year from now and I would put good money on the bet that your life would be much happier and you would feel much freer.

The truth is, we only want to communicate fully when it is in our best interest.  We still want to look good, still want to be liked, still want what we want when we want it and truth telling might put an end to that.  And then there is the fear of “if people really knew how I felt, then they would not like me” or being afraid that people will leave you if they knew the truth about you or the real you.  You may also fear that you actually know what you need to say or do, but are too afraid of the consequences and of the unknown.

Unfortunately, we may have been not communicating for so long that we may feel that we have lost the ability to know what our truth is or even what we really want.  If this is the case, you may find that a trained counselor can help you find your truth.   The thing is, we never lose ourselves.  Our truth is in there.   Eleanor Roosevelt said “You must do the thing you cannot do”.   If you want to be free and happy, communicating fully is a thing you must do.

We tend to think of forgiveness as a spiritual concept, but it is absolutely a psychological one as well.  Consider the following definition:  Forgiveness is “not condoning, excusing or forgetting what happened,” rather it is the decrease or elimination of “resentment or anger toward an offender,”  which is replaced  by “more positive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors” (Knutson, Enright and Garbers, 2008).  Isn’t that the point of psychotherapy and counseling, to be happier?

I’m not suggesting that this is easy work.  I actually believe this is an advanced adult skill.  It takes commitment, willingness, action, intention and energy.  It’s also important to note that if you have been abused or traumatized in any way and you are having an adverse reaction to the idea of forgiving, that means that it’s time for you to work on your healing first and foremost!

To be clear, the forgiveness I’m speaking of does NOT mean that:

• You allow someone who is abusive to continue that behavior.
• You have to continue to be in relationship with the offender.
• You think that what happened was okay with you (abuse is NEVER okay).
• You must tell the person that you have forgiven them.
• You forgive because that’s the “right thing to do.”
• You only forgive others, but not yourself.
• You have to forgive without help.
• You have to forgive before you’re ready.

The practice of forgiveness is actually an act of self-interest and not about another person.  It frees you because harboring resentments is like that saying about taking poison and expecting the other person to suffer.  Resentments steal your joy.  We can have joy or we can have resentments.  We can’t have both.  That is why practicing forgiveness of ourselves and others is crucial and how forgiveness relates to counseling.

Reference:  Journal of Counseling and Development, 2008:  Validating the Developmental Pathway of Forgiveness by Jeanette Knutson, Robert Enright, and Benjamin Garbers.