Making true, lifelong changes in these areas depend on several ingredients. The first is a commitment from you. Often, as we attempt change, unforeseen instincts from within us may attempt to undermine the process in order to maintain the known, status quo existence even if it limits freedom and happiness. Change is often resisted because we may unknowingly associate it with traumatic experiences that we now try to avoid at all costs. For example, we may be terrified of feeling embarrassed or humiliated. If on any level, we fear that change will possibly move us closer to an experience that may embarrass us, we will likely resist it even if the status quo is very unrewarding. That is why it takes a commitment from you to a change process that may at times take you closer to feared experiences. Another ingredient is trust. Up to now, you have learned to trust only your own, familiar mechanisms of self-protection, be they avoidance, anxiously anticipating the worst, or other life-limiting symptoms.

Learning to trust new ways takes time and practice. My job in this is to provide an environment that encourages this development of trust in less familiar parts of yourself. Even though the space I provide is a non-judgmental one, it is not one that allows you to hide from uncomfortable realities. Through the relationship that we co-create, together we will help develop a sense of strength within you to handle new experiences. Only in that way can we develop the ability to consistently move through life in new ways. There is a reason that self-help books are limited. Even if we intellectually understand the often good suggestions we find within them, self-help books often fail. Alone, they do not provide the emotional conditions that are necessary to develop trust in untried parts of ourselves to allow for real change. Sometimes that can only come from a psychotherapy experience.