Resist Change!

We can often feel a great pressure from other people to change. For whatever reason, it can be hard to be accepted for who we are. We can find ourselves agreeing with the other people, wishing to change our personalities; even though it might not be what we really want. However, it's likely that this won't work out well. How can we gain the strength to resist change?

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Some reasons to change…

Sometimes there is good reason to change. We find ourselves with habits we don't like or treating people in ways we know isn't right. We can repeat patterns which don't do us any good, or find ourselves in the same trouble as before. All these changes are ones that would concede are probably in our best interest.

… and some reasons to not change

At other times though, other people want us to change for their own reasons. Maybe there's something in our personality which the other person finds uncomfortable or unfathomable even though there is nothing wrong with it. A typical example of this is how extroverts can be quite uncomfortable with introverts, and see introversion as a type of mental illness – which it isn't. However, there may be times when even the most introverted person would like to be able to be just a little bit more socially at ease or comfortable with other people.

Be yourself first – change comes from security

Counter-intuitively, to make a change like this we often need to become more what we are to strengthen our ability to become more of what we want to be. To use the same example, an introvert might need to be able to withdraw and spend time by themselves without the pressures of other people to give them strength to be able to be more sociable. In other words, we sometimes need to be able to resist the pressure to change in order to be able to change. As with any change process, psychotherapy can help you become more of what you really are so you can then experience the strength to choose to become something a little bit different.

Tell me what you think in the comments.

– Tim Hill

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