And how can I create a more lasting transformation?
When you’ve been making progress on your emotional healing journey for a while, it’s a huge disappointment to realise you’ve dropped the ball and are slipping back to old ways – or worse!
Then, as well as the problems you’re (still) facing, you now have the added layer of feeling deflated and confused. Maybe you even gave up for a while as you wrestled with a sense of hopelessness.
But something always stirs inside you… a knowing that you’ll never fully quit on yourself; accepting that healing and growth are lifelong pursuits with no obvious destination.
And so here you are, again keen to make progress and this time, resolve your issues at the root… so you can enjoy a more lasting change. But how? And why did your past attempts run aground?
When asked why they strayed from their healing path, people frequently say…
…the approach became timeworn and monotonous… or that they forgot and skipped some practices until all momentum was lost… or other “lifey” things took over… or they started strong, trying everything but couldn’t sustain the effort.
It’s worth reflecting back on your path to see what obstacles came along to disrupt you, and with this awareness, put in place new systems and contingencies to support you.
Let’s look at each of the pitfalls:
Timeworn and monotonous practices
It’s not always that the method is wrong, but sometimes it’s only right-for-now. It can only take you so far on your journey before it too becomes a heavy weight to carry, eventually slowing you down.
As you evolve, new challenges come up, and these often require new, creative solutions. Even timelessly effective strategies can feel stale, or we become complacent about them and lose our sense of awe and appreciation.
Reflection: Do you need to reignite your passion for the practices you’ve chosen, or are they ones you’ve outgrown?
One, Two, Skip A Few…
It’s natural that we forget things at times, or that we need a brief break from the routine, to pause and reflect or just rest and have fun. What remains a priority though will usually find its way back onto our calendars, so let’s look more closely at the forgetting and skipping part…
The subconscious mind is a powerful centre for ensuring our survival. And what it believes, as part of the task of keeping us alive, is that the things we have always done weren’t too dangerous, because we’re still alive. So there’s already a built-in resistance to change.
Thanks to the survival brain, it can seem like we “forgot” or that skipping a couple of sessions won’t be a big deal, yet the intention underneath is more hesitant and protective. And we experience a sensation of relief and safety.
One workaround is to make the practices sooo tiny and unthreatening that they’re easy to do with total regularity, thus creating an “acceptable” habit – and then this becomes part of what keeps you “alive”, so to speak, gaining the trust of your cautious subconscious mind.
On a practical note, what can you do to set reminders for yourself, or arrange for some external accountability if that helps retain your focus?
Life happens
This one is extremely frustrating… it’s like building your beautiful sandcastle, only for some obnoxious kid to kick it down. So what can you do?
Diagnose the issue: Let’s look at why your chosen modality for healing or growth can’t accommodate these life events. Is it that there’s simply no time or energy left for yourself? If so, a shift towards boundary-setting may be the answer. You’ll still be on your healing path but adding some skills and parameters to support your onward journey, reclaiming valuable time to devote to the original practice – but in an uplevelled way!
Or if the impact of the interruption threw you into a downward shame spiral, this could signal the need to introduce shadow work to your toolkit. When your existing setup for personal development fails you, it’s time to regroup.
Consider honestly whether your modality has become part of the problem, such as hurrying you to forgive or adopt an attitude of gratitude, when instead you deeply need to recognise a harmful pattern that needs addressing. These moments feel chaotic and confusing, but remember that you’re living a human existence and it’s allowed to look messy while you figure things out.
Going all in… then burning out quickly
Nobody likes to suffer unnecessarily. We have an innate urge towards homeostasis, and only from there, from a place of peace and relative safety, can we emerge into true growth, success and abundance.
And so when we feel crappy, this urge becomes urgency. We need answers NOW, resolution YESTERDAY, and we instinctively grab hold of anything that looks like it’ll help. We set alarms for 5am to make sure we’ve tackled the meditation and affirmations and breathwork and cold swimming and green juicing and art therapy before the rest of the world wakes up. Then we stay up late to do our evening review exercises and goal-setting ready for a successful start tomorrow. Phew, I’m exhausted just writing this!
Instead, try this: Introduce one new tool or activity per week or month. Give it time to settle in and demonstrate its value in your life. You’ll not always be able to discern which new additions are the most impactful or supportive when they’re all happening at once. Some may even be cancelling out the others!
Healing is not something that can be hurried or optimised in a productivity-hacks kind of way. It’s something you need to feel and learn to trust as you build foundations of safety and then capacity. There may be time for all the fun extras later, but simplicity is key.
From Revolving to Evolving
My hypnotherapy clients would invariably say that hypnosis was their last resort… They’d “tried everything else” and were close to giving up hope. These 20 plus years of conversations have taught me so much about what doesn’t work and why.
I poured all of this insight back into my work, passionate about unlocking the best ways to the most lasting transformations:
- Working with the roots, which means knowing how to get there… whilst honouring and easing their natural subconscious resistance
- Somatic/nervous-system awareness and real-time techniques to gently embody the changes
- Clarifying frameworks that cut through the mental chatter and societal noise
- Applying effective coaching principles and mentoring to spot skill gaps and sustain momentum, and
- Belief and identity-level shifts, so that “slipping backwards” would simply feel alien and unnecessary now.
Life is too short to be circling around the same issues forever, weighed down by unnecessary tasks or distracted by flashy yet flimsy promises of miracle cures and quick fixes.
So I designed a way to take yourself off the tedious merry-go-round and onto a path and direction you create (remember that scene from Mary Poppins? 🎠).
I built Evolve specifically for those women who are done with squeezing their emotional well-being into fleeting gaps in their lives. Our work together is values-driven, honouring all the “parts” that contribute to inner conflicts, and allowing the time you need for deep work such as shadow integration, inner child communication and boundary-management. We work with your natural cycles of enthusiasm, productivity, reflection, release and rest, so instead of making yourself dizzy and exhausted, your energy becomes top priority.
It’s also engaging, with fun activities and an adventure theme, well-paced with regular 1:1 sessions for guidance and accountability, and downloadable hypnosis audios to support your growth and those subconscious shifts. If I haven’t thought of everything, let me know what’s missing for you – what kind of help do you need?
When it’s your time to Evolve, we can have a conversation about what’s keeping you from having the life you desire, the structures anchoring you to your past and how to release these and embody a new identity of the woman you most want to be (and can be). If you’re not sure whether to book a discovery call with me, I’m happy to answer any questions via DM (Messenger), so ask away!
