Change Your Life and Everyone In It: How To: - Softcover

Weiner Davis, Michele

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0684824698 ISBN 13: 9780684824697

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1996

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of Divorce Busting comes a powerful blueprint for creating immediate, dramatic, and lasting changes in every aspect of your life.
If you're tired of being told why you have problems instead of what you can do about them, if you're tired of examining your feelings and are ready for action, then Michele Weiner-Davis has good news for you. Whether you're attempting to improve a difficult relationship, struggling to overcome depression, trying to establish a better relationship with your kids, or coping with a stressful work environment, Change Your Life and Everyone In It is filled with inspiring examples of people who have made real and enduring changes in their lives. Focusing on the simple actions that make change possible, Weiner-Davis offers a step-by-step, no nonsense program for discovering and implementing practical solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems.

About this title

About the Author:

Michele Weiner-Davis, MSW, is an internationally renowned relationship expert and author of several books including The Divorce Remedy, the bestselling Divorce Busting, A Woman's Guide to Changing Her Man, Change Your Life and Everyone in It, and In Search of Solutions. She has appeared as a regular guest on Oprah, 48 Hours, The Today Show, CBS This Morning, and taped a seminar on PBS entitled Keeping Love Alive. A therapist in private practice specializing in Solution-Oriented Brief Therapy, her highly-acclaimed workshops have earned her national recognition. She lives in Illinois with her husband of over thirty years.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter One

Why Ask Why?

By virtue of the fact that you picked up this book, I know something about you. You're ready for a change in your life. You may want to change something about yourself -- you might want to lose weight, free yourself from depression, or improve your self-esteem. On the other hand, perhaps you feel fine about yourself, it's the people around you who need to shape up -- you might feel your partner is overly critical or inattentive, your kids are driving you nuts, or your coworkers are making your life miserable. Or all of the above.

I also know that when I say, "You're ready for a change in your life," it doesn't mean that you weren't ready to make this change yesterday, last month, or even last year. Chances are, your thirst for change didn't just happen. You've been thinking and dreaming about it for some time now. You've probably even tried to make things better. But, you're still not where you want to be. Real change, it seems, has been extremely difficult and frustratingly elusive.

I know because that's exactly what I used to think -- and that's really scary because I'm an "expert," a psychotherapist, a shrink -- the person whose job it is to help people change their lives. But I confess. There was a time when I was stumbling in the dark, when my thinking about truly helping people was just wishful thinking.

Thankfully, those days are long gone. Through a process of trial and error I figured out what works. I have learned that change isn't nearly as complicated or involved as I once thought.

I want you to know that there is a new way to find solutions -- immediate solutions -- to chronic problems that doesn't require you to analyze the problem to death. In fact, it doesn't require painful rehashing of the problem at all. Although there's a widespread belief that understanding why you are having a problem will help you to solve the problem, you know in your heart that it simply isn't so. Knowing why you overeat or are depressed doesn't help you control your eating or make you feel better. Understanding how you were raised doesn't help you stop fighting with your spouse or get along better with your kids. Recognizing what's at the root of the friction in the office doesn't make it go away. Perhaps you've secretly suspected this all along but were afraid to acknowledge it because, in theory, analyzing a problem is supposed to help. But you and I both know it doesn't! It only makes you an expert on why you're stuck. By now, you probably have an advanced degree in understanding how the problems in your life came into being, but take it from me, there's no future in it.

For the past ten years, I have been observing miracles. An eight-year-old girl, described by her teacher as "the most insecure little girl I've ever seen," experiences perpetual urinary problems and a cough so wrenching that she vomits nightly, problems her doctors diagnose as psychosomatic and stress-related. Within weeks, she is symptom-free and is transformed into a well-adjusted, happy, loving, healthy child, leaving her parents, doctors, and teacher amazed. A woman in her mid-twenties, depressed beyond words over the loss of a boyfriend six months before, regains her zest for life within days. A middle-aged salesman at risk of losing his job attacks his work with an enthusiasm he hasn't felt for years and doubles his accounts within weeks. On the brink of divorce, a couple with years of emotional distance between them put a halt to the legal process and successfully regenerate their love.

If you're thinking that all this sounds too good to be true, I couldn't agree more. After ten years of witnessing countless transformations such as these, I still find them unbelievable. I am in awe of how quickly people find solutions to complex problems or make momentous decisions that radically improve their lives. After all, conventional wisdom suggests that change of any kind is painful and slow. The miracles I see simply defy common sense. They also defy everything I had ever been taught about how people change.

Seventeen years ago, I hung out my shingle as a professional therapist. My training had been fairly traditional. I had learned to be an empathetic listener, to watch closely for telling body language, to explore people's childhoods to unravel the causes of current problems, to encourage the expression of intense feelings of anger or hurt. I had been taught that people really can't escape the stranglehold of the past until they relive sometimes excruciating memories and glean the appropriate insights or "truths" about their lives. I conscientiously and religiously put these principles into practice but soon discovered a shocking fact. They simply didn't work.

For example, a couple I was seeing complained of frequent arguments over the handling of money. Each time one of them wished to make a purchase, the other balked and an argument ensued: "You tell me that I shouldn't spend money on new work clothes, but you go to every sporting event imaginable," and so on. Soon, the arguing about money spilled over into other areas of their lives. They now fought about housework, child care, and how free time was spent.

I had been trained to believe that, in order to overcome problems such as these, people must first gain insight into the ways in which their childhood has influenced them. The theory is that problems are symptoms of underlying issues that stem from childhood experiences and cannot be resolved until the root of the problem is identified and "worked through."

Accordingly, I determined that this couple's arguments were a symptom of underlying issues of power and control in their marriage. We were very thorough in our search for clues about the origins of these problems. They discussed how each of them was raised and examined their own parents' marriages for telltale signs of similar struggles. Painstakingly, we assembled all the pieces of the puzzle, until it was clear to all three of us how their respective upbringings had affected them. Whereupon the couple turned to me and said, "Michele, now we understand why we are having arguments about money, but we still don't have a clue as to what to do differently." Unfortunately, it wasn't the last time I heard that objection.

It slowly became apparent to me that understanding why someone has a particular problem has absolutely nothing to do with solving it. All the insight in the world didn't help most of my clients improve the quality of their lives. Those who were overweight knew exactly why they were overeating -- to fill an emotional void, to hide, to repel intimacy, and so on -- but they continued to overeat. Quarrelsome spouses recognized how the divergent expectations they brought to marriage were often at the root of their clashes, but this awareness didn't make one bit of difference: the fighting persisted. People plagued with low self-esteem realized how derogatory, and belittling messages given to them as children made them feel insecure and inadequate, but nothing changed: they still felt lousy. Overly permissive parents acknowledged after long soul-searching that their permissiveness was an extreme reaction to their own restrictive upbringings, but this insight failed to assist them in setting limits for their children. In short, the people with whom I worked all had the usual "aha!" revelations -- flashes of tremendous insight -- but when they returned for subsequent sessions their misery persisted, the only difference being that they were now experts on why they were unhappy.

The fact that the majority of my clients left therapy enlightened but unchanged confused me. According to my training, the process of gaining insight should have been more helpful. Eager to make sense of my experiences, I asked other therapists about their "therapy failures" and learned that I was not alone. My colleagues, however, concluded that clients who didn't solve their problems during therapy had only themselves to blame. "They're just resistant," I was told. "She is not ready to change." "He is only window-shopping -- not really motivated." It was tempting simply to agree, but at heart I was not convinced. My instincts told me that most people seek professional help because they are in pain and really do want to change. I resolved to find a better way.

My urgency to find an effective problem-solving method was fueled by other unsettling discoveries about what really goes on behind therapists' closed doors. No longer confident that insight into the past would provide the vehicle for change, I fell back on the other techniques I had been taught to help my clients beyond impasses. One such method is based on the notion that people feel better when they "get their pain and anger out." So, whenever I noticed a wince cross a client's face, indicating fertile emotional ground, I'd faithfully urge, "Let it out, it's okay." I placed boxes of tissues within handy arm's length as an unspoken reminder that tears are good. In no time at all, many of my clients were "letting it out," and when they sobbed I felt proud that I was able to help them do such "intense work." The intensity of the sessions convinced me that I was doing "real therapy."

But I soon became aware that, instead of feeling relief when they spent the majority of a session discussing painful memories or uncomfortable feelings, my clients felt terrible when they walked out the door. I consoled them (and myself) by reminding them that people must feel their pain in order to get beyond it. But the truth of the matter was that, despite their so-called catharsis, most of my clients didn't get to the other side. Session after session they returned, the dour expression on their faces indicating that nothing had changed.

It became clear to me that, although "getting it out" was cathartic for some people under certain circumstances, the relief it gave them was short-lived. For others, it brought no relief at all. Some of my more honest clients eventually admitted that they looked forward to therapy sessions about as much they looked forward to going to the dentist. I couldn't keep from pondering the irony that a tool that is supposed to help people feel better seemed to leave many people feeling worse.

My faith in conventional therapy methods was running thin, but at least I thought I could rely on a principle I'd learned in Psychology 101, that relationship problems can be resolved when people become aware of their "inner feelings" and express them to others. Therefore, I routinely chanted my therapist mantra -- "Look at her and tell her how you feel inside" -- assuming that it would magically bring about a solution. But once again I was disappointed. I discovered that by the time most people come for therapy they are already acutely aware of and have expressed their feelings to others, yet their problems still remain. Exploring these feelings in therapy did nothing to resolve the differences between people.

For example, even when a parent told his child how her irresponsible behavior in school and at home disappointed and hurt him, she continued cutting classes and being fresh at home. Soon after a woman told her husband that she wanted him to spend more quality time with the family, he informed her that he had signed up for a new golf league. A week after a woman confessed to a friend her irritation at the friend's habitual lateness, her friend showed up a half-hour late for lunch. A husband told his wife that he needed more intimacy in their marriage, yet she continued to use every imaginable excuse to avoid his company. Unfortunately, all of these divulgences seemed to fall on deaf ears. No one changed his or her behavior as a result of hearing how it displeased others, even when the feedback was sincere and sensitively stated.

Gradually, and reluctantly, I concluded that the effectiveness of understanding and expressing feelings about relationship problems is drastically overrated. In fact, I noticed that rehashing each party's discordant feelings ad nauseam tends to exaggerate differences, making them more difficult to reconcile.

I was at a loss. It seemed that nothing I had been taught about helping people to change worked. That's when I encountered a radically different therapy approach, solution-oriented brief therapy (SBT). At the time, brief therapy was in its infancy. Scattered about were small revolutionary think tanks, pioneers courageous enough to question traditional psychotherapy gospel. Upon discovering these forward thinkers and their unorthodox methods, I sensed immediately that I had "come home."

As its name implies, SBT works quickly, enabling most people to resolve their problems in three to six sessions. The secret to its brevity is that, instead of taking a long introspective journey into the past, SBT helps people to envision a positive future and to identify fail-safe strategies for getting there. Instead of channeling people's efforts into understanding why they are experiencing problems, SBT helps them figure out how to resolve problems. Instead of identifying the causes of problems, SBT identifies the causes of solutions. It is a technology for change, not introspection, allowing most people to feel better about their lives within days, not months or years.

This approach is based on a very simple formula: do more of what works and less of what doesn't. No matter what type of problem people are experiencing or how bad the situation seems at the moment, there are times when things go more smoothly. First, SBT reminds people to recognize what they already know about what works so that they can repeat successful solutions. Second, SBT helps people to identify and eliminate the repetitive, unproductive patterns that lead to failure. The most common complaint I used to hear from clients was, "I still don't know have a clue about what to do to change my situation." I don't hear that anymore. Now my clients leave armed with a plan they can implement the moment they walk out the door.

As I began practicing SBT, several advantages of this focused approach quickly became apparent. Most people felt some relief from their problems immediately. The emphasis on solutions showed people light at the end of the tunnel, which had a powerfully reassuring effect, especially after months or years of brooding about their problems. Often they had become so immersed in their difficulties that they had come to believe that nothing would or could ever change. SBT got them to question that premise. Many told me as they left the initial meeting that for the first time in months they felt hope.

It became clear that, the more hopeful people became, the more they expected good things to happen, and therefore the more energy they put into making good things happen -- hence, many more good things did in fact happen. More than ever before, I began to appreciate the power of optimism and the toxicity of pessimism about the future. Pessimism saps people's energies and prevents them from taking -- or noticing -- baby steps forward. I realized that the traditional methods I had been using, by not offering some instant relief, actually increased pessimism, making positive outcomes less likely. The sixties saying "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" took on new meaning for me. Part of the magic of SBT, I began to see, is that it immediately became part of the solution, instilling hopefulness and helping people to reverse downward spirals swiftly. Here is a message a woman recently left on my answering machine:

I called you last week and I wrote you a letter and I was desperate. I was going to commit suicide. You will never know what yo...

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0684824698
• ISBN 13: 9780684824697
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272