I’ve seen this phrase being used a lot in advertising psychotherapy and the potential to change. To a degree it’s true, but I wonder if a better phrase would be the time to examine and consider change is now.
Not so catchy, but more relevant I feel.
The timing of looking, or changing, can be a difficult thing to get right. Yesterday is an impossibility, as it’s already gone, so that’s out as an option. Tomorrow is attractive as it can be less scary. And ultimately it's never tomorrow, so the goal of doing something tomorrow will never come around, and there's no associated guilty or compulsion to make that step.
Now, or today, that can be terrifying.
Life may not be great, but it can also feel manageable, and without a desperate need to examine and change, tomorrow can be seen as a better option. A lot of the time, things could be worse, so we're willing to wait for tomorrow as stagnation can be sold to ourselves as progression. For a lot of us, looking at our pasts, and our presents, with a view to really trying to get to an understanding, can be a discombobulating thought to say the least. So we try and postpone.
Except, that postponement can mean that suddenly the now that is manageable and at least partially stable is intolerable and filled with overwhelming emotions which require urgent, drastic change and help.
Now, now is the only time when we can really try and help. Whether that now finds you in either a dramatic and unstable period, or whether there’s just a nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right, now is literally the only time you can reach out for help. Irrespective of the position you find yourself in, examining your life can give you a perspective to change. Maybe.
The maybe is important. We’re bombarded with images of famous celebrities who have the perceived perfect life, with the perfect family, the perfect body and the bank balance which is the northern side of healthy. These types of images are inescapable, and can infiltrate our emotional side without our realizing it, in a similar way to how we can diminish big events can be diminished as they’re not as bad as catastrophes we see on the evening news.
Viewing the concept of change is also fraught with perceived danger. If you come to therapy, then do you have to change? Does it make you accountable for actually doing something. Change can be seen as positive, or a negative, but in reality we're always changing are we not? We always have a choice over what we do, and because of that, if we aren't changing, then our relationship to what we're doing alters as we become more comfortable with the not changing; so we change inside.
So change happens all the time, and we don't realise it. That's helpful a lot of the time, so when there are building works at your change station on your morning commute, you're able to change and adapt without thinking. However if we don't examine our way of being in the world, how much can we change from the us we think we know, and before we realise it, we're actually far away from our mental image of ourself. Change is a constant, but our awareness isn't a given, which is quite a scary concept.
If you feel the time is right for a deeper examination of your life, how you’ve ended up where you are, the motivations and thoughts behind your actions and how you may change….
Reach out [email protected].
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