Want to quit but can't?

Does any of this sound like you? You keep doing things that don't get what you want. You see patterns in your life that you don’t like. You want to change something but fall into old behaviors no matter how hard you try. Why does that happen?

What's at work here?

We’ve all heard psychologists and others talk about how our “formative years,” essentially age 0-10, play a big role in how we relate to the world around us as adults. These are tricky years for us because during that window of our development, we have little power over our lives. We are dependent on our parents and others older than us to help us learn about and navigate life in a way that keeps us feeling safe and loved. It might be an older sibling, a cousin, an aunt or uncle, a teacher, a neighbor, a community leader, or a grandparent, for instance.

Whoever they are, they have power over us because they are “older and wiser” than we are, and we depend on them to guide us. Yet they also have power over us by virtue of our innocence and lack of capacity to navigate the world with much authority on our own. This is how, as youngsters, we may develop coping strategies that keep us safe at that stage, but don’t work for us as adults. And this is why reviewing the dynamics we grew up with can be so enlightening as adults.

Here are some examples. If we grew up in a family in which our parents lacked the capacity to hold space for our range of emotions as children, we will struggle to do that for ourselves and others as adults. If they distorted our emotional expressions by, for instance, allowing, supporting, or approving of anger but not sadness, we will likely express anger easily but become uncomfortable with expressions of sadness and grief as adults. If they failed to nurture our sensitivities, we will likely struggle to embrace our own and those of others as adults. If pouting was the only way we were heard as children, chances are we will pout as adults to try and get our needs met.

How to cultivate change

As we mature and choose to explore our coping patterns within relationships—especially our intimate ones—we begin to see how those childhood templates continue to play out in our adult lives. We may even notice that despite our best intentions and efforts not to repeat them, we do, and that they have been running a covert operation within us. We might also see how our coping patterns have hurt us and others.

The purpose of having such insight isn’t to punish or shame ourselves. It’s that as difficult as it may be to face these things, seeing it clearly is the first step to being able to change it. We can’t change what we can’t see. Awareness of these covert operations empowers us to start doing something about them, to choose something different.

When we do see them clearly, it’s important to offer ourselves compassion and grace because these covert operations helped us survive as kids, even as they may be an obstacle for us as adults. Punishing ourselves for them doesn’t help anything. They are what we knew and could do in our innocence.

The good news is that we grow up into stronger, more experienced and capable adults who have the power to change what doesn’t work for us, especially within our relationships. Noticing that things aren't going the way we want is the first step to changing them. Owning our role in these things is the second step. Offering ourselves loving compassion for the parts we don't like that we bring to things is the third step. And committing to changing the things we don't like about what we find is the fourth step. If we notice things we don't like about our personal behaviors but do nothing to transform them, we risk losing ourselves to endless patterns that thwart our life dreams.

Remember that help is here. You don’t have to do this transformative journey alone. In fact, it’s much easier to work with a guide who can see what you cannot and provide fresh insights into how to shift things in ways that support you in moving closer to your dream life.

Remember also that nothing changes if you change nothing. To get the results you want in life means you change something, reflect on the outcome, and regroup accordingly. If you keep doing the same things, you'll keep getting the same results.

When you're ready to make the changes you dream of, book a session and let’s get started.