The Principles Of Healing And Growth

Healing follows three simple steps:
1: Awareness: become aware of what is happening internally and externally.
2 Acceptance: accept reality as it is (without needing to like or agree with it).
3: Action: take small, value-aligned actions toward resolution or growth.

Transcript

So in my role as a counsellor and a coach I've seen a variety of clients presenting in a variety of different ways, Different goals, Different conditions, Different needs, Different wants, Different desires, Different everything. And there's hundreds of different theories about what will help them from the realm of psychology and counselling, Many many many spiritual traditions and techniques, Religions and many different people's personal opinions, You know science, Spirituality and self. And all of these things seem to be pointing in different ways to help people survive and thrive, To help people overcome, To help people adapt, To help people grow, To help people attain goals. And in my mind I'm trying to conceptualize what's the principle behind all of these things that can help everyone. How can we combine all of that into one sort of zip file, One sort of code, One base instruction that you can go, Okay I've got a problem or a goal, How can I get there? And I think I've come up with the answer, Three A's. Awareness, Acceptance, Action. The first step, Awareness. We need to be aware of what is arising, Aware of ourself, Aware of the situation. Until we are aware of the problem or aware of the goal, We can't do anything about it. Unless we have high levels of self-awareness, Knowing who and what we are, What we want, Our values, Our skills and our limitations, Our past, We can't really take action, We can't really do anything. Until we become aware of our external situation, Family, Friendship group, Country, Geopolitics, Trends and forces, All of the things external to us, Until we're aware of what's going on, We may know ourselves, But ourselves in what context, In what space. So the first step is awareness, Become aware of who we are, Where we want to go, What our needs are, Etc. To get awareness, We practice introspection, Meditation, My people, To therapists, To coaches, To friends, To family, We journal, We turn our attention inwards and check in, We do all of these things and we keep doing it. It's a continual process, We are not one thing, We are continually changing, It changes depending on the context and the people around and the inner space and all of these things. It is a continual continual self-awareness. Okay, We've become aware, Next step is acceptance, We need to accept reality as it is for what it is right now. This is a deep sort of mindfulness practice but you find it in every almost every tradition and almost every theory of counseling and psychology, We must accept reality. Okay, I'm aware of who I am, If I don't accept it, There's a mismatch and we find a disalignment, That disalignment can cause internal friction, It can cause internal confusion, It can cause a whole variety of problems. Until we accept the reality of ourself, Of our world, We can't act and once again this is a deep, Slow and ongoing process. It can be very hard to accept reality, Particularly when the reality is not comfortable. Now good, Bad or otherwise, There'll be aspects of everyone's reality that they're not happy with. Some people will have more things to be upset about or concerned about or have legitimate concerns and things that need to be changed and addressed and tweaked, I get that but everyone needs to accept who they are and what situation they're in before they can do anything meaningful about it. Right, Once again this is a practice that you can really get from mindfulness. You sit, You focus on the breath, Your mind wanders, You bring it back, Your mind wanders, You bring it back, We note where the mind has gone, We accept the contents of our consciousness and we bring it back. It sounds very simple, Too simple but daily practice over time helps you to accept and once again journaling, This is my reality, This is what I'm feeling, This is what I'm dealing with. We become aware, We start to accept it. Going off into a fantasy or a dreamland or blocking it off might be a defense mechanism that works, It can keep you alive, It can keep you going but it doesn't really always often change the situation. The only way we can do anything meaningful about it is to accept it. Final part, We've become aware, We've accepted, Now we're taking action. Action will be down a variety of different paths. Action to help yourself, Action to change the external environment, Action towards a goal, Action to seek help from others that we need, Experts, Advice, Medications, Interventions. The action is hard to quantify because whatever things you need, Whatever goals you are going for, Wherever you are at will be different to everyone else but if you are aware of the problem, If you've accepted the problem, Then you can find an action that best suits that problem. Oftentimes that action involves change, Involves you doing something different but we need to become aware of that action and accept that action. So there's a bit of circular logic in here but it's a process. Awareness, Acceptance and then acting according to the awareness and acceptance. If we look over science or psychology, If we look over spiritual traditions and techniques and if we connect into the self we can start to see it's okay, I need to become aware, I need to accept and then I can take action that is appropriate to my issues, My problems, My goals, My circumstances and keep checking back in. Awareness, Acceptance, Action. The good thing about this approach, This sort of three A's approach to self-improvement I guess, To self-healing, Is that I don't like this in my life, I'm feeling something in the body, Like the body keeps the score, Emotions, Sensations of the body and messages, Something's arising. Okay I'm aware, Let's dig deeper into that space. Okay I'm accepting what's coming, What actions do I need to take to resolve this and it's a continual process. Good luck.