Everything changes but nothing has changed
I have been a therapist for over 30 years (with all the double meanings that implies) years. During that time I have seen many changes in people. I’m sure you do too, but my work is geared towards that human endeavor, so probably I, as well as other practitioners in the field of healing, can see more of it. The question often arises: “How do people change?” and “What is the process and what does it look and feel like?”
I don’t know who said it first, but I’ve said it often since: Everything changes but nothing has changed. Here is a summary of personal change in therapy. Let me say right away that change is not only made possible by therapy, it is very likely that when a person sees a therapist who is good, Will happen, as long as they are motivated to do so.
This is an important first point: as long as they are motivated to achieve it, because most of us have an internal spoiler. This is a subpersonality that defends the status quo, for not changing course, that yells “Watch out! Watch out!”, as well as “It’s not going to work, don’t be so gullible!”. The saboteur expresses itself in cynicism, doubt, mistrust, and irritation, as well as in internal statements such as “Don’t get over yourself,” “Who do you think you are?” and “Why should it work for you?” The herd mentality is sometimes all-powerful. The idea, even the beginning of the idea, of rising above the level of peer group, family, and friends is instinctively abhorrent to us. It seems to threaten our very survival. If you’re not in touch with this, then get in touch with him. Racist, obese, misogynistic, childhood and physical disability prejudices are a collective phenomenon, rather than a purely personal one. This means that each of us must take a deep responsibility for prejudice and intolerance in order to bring about change.
The individual who has undergone a change in the inner world is different from the rest. Their transformation distinguishes them because they are no longer prey to conditioning, they no longer act according to the emotional and behavioral patterns that emerge from early childhood training. In short, they are no longer conditioned.
So, we have an internal spoiler. What other thing? Well, there’s the boredom, a lazy part, an apathetic part, a kid who thinks someone else should do it for him, a fearful part that doesn’t want to jeopardize his marriage or relationship, his career, etc. But alongside all of these, and often possessing immense resilience, strength, and courage (and these are the qualities that are needed now), is the traveler, the seeker, the inner explorer, or the adept. This part of us deeply longs for truth, reality, authenticity, and a vibrant, passionate, loving life.
As long as the seeker follows this part of them willingly and with dedication, the inner work process will lead to personal change.
And what happens with memories, with abandonment, with fears and insecurities, with impending neurosis and psychosis, the madness of the inner life when we change? He steps aside. It stays, but like a photo album, you can take it out and look if you want, but it doesn’t bother you anymore, it doesn’t even compete for attention too much. It becomes a part of you that has died or gone or been relegated to the past. And it doesn’t have the emotion, the emotional charge that it used to have.
One more thing: Nothing that happened to us happened for no reason. Everything that happened has a positive side. The direct pursuit of that positive reward is, in my opinion, a mistake, because it can lead to deeper and deeper levels of self-delusion. But when and if you get there, you will notice the metamorphosis of negative memories, no matter how painful and damaging they may have seemed to you at the time you experienced them. It is perhaps the true meaning of the word miracle.
I find Hermann Hesse’s Magical Theater at the end of his book Steppenwolf to be a very vivid and apt illustration of the maxim: Everything changes but nothing has changed. The hero of Hesse’s book walks down a long corridor looking left and right, opening the doors of rooms, and as he does so he sees himself in various positions and circumstances, reflecting hidden and repressed but nonetheless real sides of life. me inside him. . The bottom line is this: within us we partake of every trend, from glorious to low, of the human condition. What separates us from those others who misbehave is choice.
