I have been a therapist for about 30 years (with all the double meaning that that implies). During that time I have seen many changes in people. I’m sure you are too, but my work is geared towards that human endeavor, so I, like other practitioners in the healing field, will probably see more. The question often arises: “How do people change?” and “What is the process and how does it look and feel?”

I don’t know who said it for the first time, but I’ve said it often since then: Everything changes but nothing has changed. Here is a summary of personal change in therapy. Let me tell you right away that change is not only possible due to therapy, it is very likely that when a person sees a therapist who is good Will happen, as long as they are motivated to do so.

This is an important first point: as long as they are motivated to achieve it, because most of us have an internal saboteur. It is a subpersonality who defends the status quo, who does not move the boat, who yells “Be careful! Be careful!” As well as “It won’t work, don’t be so gullible!” The saboteur expresses himself with cynicism, doubt, distrust and irritation, as well as internal statements such as “Don’t put yourself above yourself”, “Who do you think you are?” and “Why should it work for you?” The pack mentality is sometimes all-powerful. The idea, even the beginning of the idea, of rising above the level of the peer group, family and friends is instinctively abhorrent to us. It seems to threaten our own survival. If you are not in touch with this, please contact him. Racist, fatista, misogynist, childish, and physically handicapped prejudices are a collective phenomenon, rather than a purely personal one. This means that each of us must take a deep responsibility for prejudice and bigotry in order to achieve change.

The individual who has undergone a change in the inner world is different from the rest. Their transformation distinguishes them because they are no longer prey to conditioning, they no longer act from emotional-behavioral patterns that emerge from early childhood training. In short, they are no longer conditioned.

So we have an internal saboteur. What other thing? Well, there is a boredom, a lazy part, a listless part, a child who thinks that someone else should do it for him, a fearful part who does not want to threaten the marriage or relationship, his career, etc. But alongside all of these, and often possessing immense endurance, strength, and courage (and these are the qualities that are needed now) is the walker, the seeker, the inner explorer, or the adept. This part of us deeply yearns for truth, reality, authenticity, and a passionate and loving life.

As long as the seeker follows this part of them willingly and with dedication, the inner work process will lead to personal change.

And what about the memories, the abandonment, the fears and insecurities, the neurosis and the impending psychosis, the madness of the inner life when we change? It moves to the side. It fits, but like a photo album, you can take it out and look if you want, but it no longer stalks you, it doesn’t even compete too much for attention. It becomes a part of you that has died, is gone, or has been relegated to the past. And it doesn’t have the emotion, the emotional charge that it used to have.

One more thing: Nothing that happened to us happened without reason. Everything that happened has a positive side. The direct pursuit of that positive reward is, in my opinion, a mistake, because it can lead to deeper and deeper levels of self-deception. But when and if you get there, you will notice the metamorphosis of negative memories, however painful and damaging they may have seemed to you at the time you experienced them. Perhaps that is the true meaning of the word miracle.

I consider Hermann Hesse’s Magic Theater at the end of his book Steppenwolf to be a very vivid and fitting illustration of the maxim: Everything changes but nothing has changed. The hero of Hesse’s book walks down a long corridor looking left and right, opening the doors of the rooms and as he does so he sees himself in various positions and circumstances, reflecting hidden and repressed, but nonetheless real, sides of his self. inside. . The bottom line is this: within us we participate in all trends, from the glorious to the bottom, of the human condition. What separates us from others who misbehave is choice.