6 - Doing the work

6 – Doing the Work

Ok, so you’ve uncovered your wound, you’ve found your edge, and you are willing to dig deeper. It has been a challenge thus far. Believe it or not, this is where the hard part starts. This is when you must start doing the work that needs to be done. And (gasp) you have to change.


Wait, what?! Who said anything about changing? Yeah, change is the hard part, but also the key to moving forward. It is the key to recovering from whatever the wound is – grief, guilt, shame. At the very least, you have to change your thoughts, and then preferably your beliefs, then habits, then relationships. The process is about substituting heathy (or at least healthier) thoughts, beliefs, and habits for the ones you have now. If you don’t make that substitution, healthy in place of unhealthy, then the wound is likely to remain.

You can stitch up the wound and move on, but if you don’t change the circumstances that led to the wound in first place, it is likely just to come back. Imagine you’ve taken up woodworking as a hobby. You have an accident with the table saw. You get your thumb stitched up. Maybe you should go back and read the safety manual more carefully before you start that next project?

How do you decide what to change? That is a good question. Start small, start with something concrete that can be easily measured. If you want to run a marathon, you have to build up to it. There are very few people who can just decide they want to run 26 miles and actually do it. Most people start off with running a few blocks, then a few more blocks, then a mile, then a few more miles. Find where your edge is, and then gradually move past it.

Change is a process, and it is also about the process itself. It is about the willingness to try something different and to see where it goes. The very act of shifting your circumstances even a little bit can make a huge difference in the long run. We often think of change as something dramatic – like being in a car and making a left turn instead of a right turn. Often, the most lasting changes are the most subtle. Instead of turning 90 degrees one way or the other, think about the changes that can accrue over time.

Imagine a boat for example. It wants to cross a lake in a straight line. But the steering wheel is off by just one degree. You don’t even notice the change while you are driving across, but that one degree compounds over time. When you reach the other side of the lake, you’re in a completely different place – all because a small change accumulated over time. It is the commitment to doing small things, every day, over time that will help to make shifts in your life.

I also want to be very clear there that there are some changes that are easy to make by ourselves, but that there are others that require help from the outside. It is always, always, always OK to ask for help. In the West in general, and in the US in particular, we have this notion of “doing it on our own.” Somehow you are better or stronger if you can muddle through on your own. That may be the case, but when you are dealing with deep issues, it is often better to have support through the process.

It is not a sign of weakness to ask for help, especially asking for professional help. Friends are vital and can provide much needed feedback, support groups can validate our feelings and the changes that we’ve made, but sometimes nothing can replace professional help.

I have no illusions that I can repair my car, so I leave it to the professionals to do that. Similarly, I’ve relied on professional therapists at multiple points in my life, and it has made a huge difference for me. I think there is a great deal of strength in asking for help – for acknowledging where your edge is and accepting what you can and can’t do. And just because you have a therapist for a period, doesn’t mean that you will need to have one indefinitely. They can be helpful tools for helping you get past certain roadblocks, allowing you then to move forward on your own.

Oh, and by the way, after I got triggered so forcefully writing about Arnold’s illness, I reached out to a colleague to help me do some more forgiveness work around that. So, yes, I take my own advice and do the work that I need to do when something comes up. It is an ongoing process.

Up Next: “Unsolicited Advice”