It can take a glimpse of the new to believe that the new is possible
The thing I’ve learned quite keenly over the past year or so is that it can take a glimpse of freedom to believe that freedom is possible. We have all started at change before, faced the high mountain of giving something up, of leaving something behind, of becoming completely disloyal to the old and facing with full application the new.
But when something has been part of your life for as long as you can remember, it can be difficult to even imagine living without it.
On a new course of thinking*, there can be a severe period of confusion between leaving the old belief, and the new belief feeling normal. You may often cling on to the reassurances despite and against feelings of disconcertion, and the feeling that “it’s not working”.
Many clients have described this dynamic: the discomfort, disorientation, and squirm of trying out and walking in the new until it takes. This is the Limbic Lag* - the time that it takes for something new to sink from the cognitive, thinking part of the brain, to feeling, sensing centre - the limbic system.
A key milestone in this process is the first experience of being free in the new
A key milestone in this process is the first glimpse, the first experience of being free in the new.
For example:
the first time that things didn’t feel unsteady through the day
the first time you notice you didn’t react with anger when someone didn’t act in the way you wanted
the first time that fear actually dissipated and peace took its place as reassurance was recalled.
the first time you went back to a place with unpleasant memories, and without even realising it at the time - you faced it without dwelling on the past.
Once this first piece of evidence is in, however fleeting it is - celebrate it. Let it be like the first hint of warmth in spring, lovely in itself and lovelier too for the season it promises.
The exact length of this limbic lag varies. Where the cognitive mind is fully persuaded it can take between 7 and 45 days, where there is ambivalence it can be greatly extended until the brain truly registers that it now has a better way.
These reassurances may be helpful as you wait for change to feel natural
Though key insights specific to each individual's situation are also vital, here are some reassurances that I have found exceedingly helpful to reassure myself as I wait for change to feel natural.
I’ve tried my old way for a long time and it has got me where I am, I should at least try another way for long enough to see it works.
My feelings will come around if only I will persevere. Feelings are only one piece of data, I can’t afford to let them be my only source of information.
My old ways only feel natural because they are so familiar. In time new ways will feel just as familiar as these do to me now.
Why am I expecting progress to be linear? Progress is much more perseverance-then-breakthrough than neat and tidy.
Perseverance and consistency will get me further than where my feelings lead me.
I am renewing my mind here, I can patiently wait for the process to come through in full.
One of the ways I have fit running into the busyness of a week over the years has been to get off the train a few stops early to finish my commute on foot. I still remember quite tenderly one evening as my backpack swished back and forth the realisation that I had made it through a whole day without any negative self talk.
I was in a new professional role at the time which was feeling like a giant step up and invitations to feel like an imposter were abundant. As crunchy step followed crunchy step along the gravel trail beside the Hutt River, a warmth rippled through me at the realisation that my reassurances had held me and I had done it. A whole day, and the start of new things to come.
*part of the underlying assumption in R.E.B.T. modality Living Wisdom operates with is the need to Trace, Face and Replace faulty ways of thinking.
*The term Limbic Lag comes from Living Wisdom’s approach to Pastoral Counselling.
If this has brought to mind anything that you would like to talk through or have help with please get in touch. Either choose a time or send an email via the contact form.
Sources of ideas and stories are acknowledged when used significantly unchanged. Underlying mental health concepts are from the Living Wisdom approach to Pastoral Counselling.