“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” -Anais Nin

I believe people can change. It isn't easy, and most of us don't want to, but we can. To change is difficult work, and many times it happens only when we are faced with dire consequences. People come to therapy to change. Many times they think they are coming to change someone else or get validated for why they feel the way they do. Those are all good reasons to seek therapy, but the bottom line is, if you go to therapy and stick with it, you will change. Sometimes people become afraid of the change, and they drop out of therapy. These people are the ones who may say it wasn't helping them to go to therapy. It may not have because the patient/therapist relationship many times determines how helpful the therapy will be. Usually, though, the underlying factor is whether the patient is ready to look at themselves honestly and make changes that will help them feel better about their situation and themselves.

The word that most signifies resistance to making changes is BUT. When I hear a “but” in our session, I make note of it. I can tell where the walls are by listening for this word. Many people use this word as a way of staying stuck. There is safety in staying stuck; you know your own rut best. It may be a rut and you may want out, but the scary part is you cannot gauge what is outside your rut. After all, self created ruts are safer than ruts made for you, BUT to admit you are in a rut you created is very difficult to hear.

A professor of mine once told me that we all live in a rut. He likened it to a distorted reality. We all make our own world, and we begin to believe it. This thought comforts me, and I think it has a lot of truth, except that humans are incredible and, once they see or have insight into the fact that there could be a better way, they will usually strive for it. For example, if a woman is told all of her life that she is ugly, she will believe it, staying in a rut created by her family. Then someone special comes along and tells her, “You aren't ugly, you are beautiful.” She sees a light in her rut, and she will strive to climb up and take a step. It won't be easy, but she will eventually take the step out. As she comes out of her rut, she will be expected to act like the confident, attractive person she was told she was. At this point, she can either accept the challenge or say, “But I can't. I am ugly.” If she goes back to this thinking, the rut begins pulling her back in. Unless she hangs on to something stronger than the pull of the rut, she will slide back in. The strongest thing to hold onto is her own self worth, but what if that was taken from her at a time she was too vulnerable to fight for it? If she has no or little self worth, the rut becomes attractive again. Known pain is more comfortable than ambiguity of not knowing and anticipating pain.

One of my patients was in a rut that was so deep it took hours of emotional energy every day to cover it up. His rut was so shameful that for him to admit it may have meant his life. His defending it was his only solution to preserve himself. His rut was a porn addiction. So intense was his addiction that it began taking hours of his time. Soon he didn't recognize his children, his wife, or himself. He told me when he was able to close his eyes, no sleep would come. The guy was one of the most miserable people I ever met. It took years for him to work out of his rut, but he did. I asked him years after I first met him, what motivated his change. He told me that his life became worse than what he had ever envisioned hell would be. That even hell would be better than the rut he had created. There were many “buts” in our first sessions, but as the sessions grew the “buts” became less and less. His taking ownership of his creation was the ladder that helped him climb out of his rut.

I have 3 tips that will help you plan your way out of your current rut. These should be done prior to seeking therapy:

1. Identify the rut you are in, who is responsible, and what you may lose if you dig out.
2. Write down every reason you think you should stay in your rut. Many times what sabotages people in getting out, is they weren't honest about what staying in the rut was protecting them from.
3. What do you expect will happen in the next year if you don't change your circumstance? Is the rut more painful than your image of what is outside of the rut? If you choose therapy, remember you are making a choice to change.

Although we may all create our life to a certain degree, many things happen to us that we have no control over. You do have control over how you react to what you have been given. Whether you react by staying stuck in the rut or climbing out is determined by your ability to avoid the word “but” and just make the change, one step out at a time.