Join us on FacebookGROW 12 Step Program – Step 8
We learned to think by reason rather than by feelings and imagination. This article on Step 8 of the GROW 12 Step Program features pieces by the Gorey GROW group which explore step 8 which is fundamentally about thinking rationally. To grow is to change, but change can be fearful.
Arklow, Enniscorthy, Gorey and Wexford groups Remembering Con Keogh at Courtown harbour
Fear
When you experience paralyzing fear in your daily life, your body and mind never rest. You start your morning with a churning feeling in your stomach as you anticipate a day that you’re convinced you cannot handle. Consumed by fear, your life seems unbearable. Your mind ruminates on everything that has happened – every minute detail – and all that might happen. You fear both the known and the unknown.
If you have experienced mental health problems before, you may begin to worry that you will become ill again. You think of the effort it took to get well, and wonder if you have enough energy to recuperate this time around.
Rather than finding solace and relief in the company of others, you begin to worry that they have begun to notice that you seem a little ‘off’. You are conscious of how your body is so tense and reactive. You think: do they notice that my hands are shaking, that I am so on edge? Will they think I am going mad? You may even think (in the midst of anxious thinking) that they might reject you because you appear odd. Your fear knows no bounds and it takes over all your life. There is simply no rest for the anxious mind.
This fear we experience is often a product of exaggerated thoughts, thoughts that cause us extreme and frequent feelings of dread. With these thoughts, we may begin to actually fear the fear itself, and tell ourselves that ‘I really cannot stand these feelings of panic’. Fear makes you helpless and the joy of living is taken away.
However we need, if we can muster the energy, to examine these thoughts. Is it really true we cannot handle our anxiety? We have already dealt with and coped with much in our lives. Can we bear, even for a moment, to step outside our comfort zone and challenge our anxieties?
If, for example, we become anxious in crowded places, we can begin to challenge this fear by spending a small time (at first in the company of a trusted friend or fellow GROW member), even 5 minutes, in a supermarket. As GROW tells us, our fear will being to lessen as we begin to act in spite of our feelings: ‘my feelings will get better as my habits of thinking and acting get better’.
When we are experiencing intense anxiety, it can be difficult too, to try and refrain from judging ourselves harshly. There is the fear itself, of course, and then there are the shameful thoughts you have about feeling anxious. Thoughts like: I am useless because I can’t deal with simple everyday tasks and I am ashamed of being so afraid and vulnerable.
By judging yourself for feeling fear, you are intensifying that very fear. Your self-critical thoughts can make you feel smaller more vulnerable, and therefore, more afraid. It can be helpful to look over the GROW piece, ‘Accepting our Shadow’. Here it states that we must try not to ‘run away from them (our feelings); for it we keep our thinking true and lives developing properly, they can no more hurt or harm us than our shadow can’.
Fear is, after all, a part of life. It is part of a range of feelings, good and bad, that we as human beings experience on a daily basis. As we come to accept our fear, we will find that this fear decreases and becomes manageable; we can bear it. We can truly do as the famous book says: “we can feel the fear and do it anyway”!
Change
The definition given in the dictionary of the word change is to ‘make or become different’. We generally spend our childhood and early adulthood becoming different; we grow taller, make new friends, start working et cetera. This is a natural type of change, a change that can often happen to us without our even thinking much has occurred. When we look around us, we see that everyone is changing and growing in this manner and therefore we are assured this change is normal and good. This is how life is supposed to be, we think, and therefore we put up little resistance.
However, this definition focuses not only on change that is easy and natural, but highlights too that change is also about ‘making [something] different’. Here change is not merely a natural process that is acted upon us, but is also the power we hold within ourselves to change our circumstances.
It is often this deeper type of change that we truly fear. To change can be a risky thing to do. It can raise many doubts and questions in our minds:
What if nobody appreciates the change in me? If I change does that not mean I am admitting that I am flawed? How do I change exactly?
Often too we are scared of change and doubtful that it can bring any good. As people our lives may have become very stuck. We have become so comfortable in our daily routine that we do not seek to change our lives or behaviours; we have become so used to them they now seem safe and secure.
Sometimes people may think that they simply cannot change, that they lack the ability to take on such an arduous and major task. Change can seem so big and scary while our daily habits- though they affect us negatively in the long run- seem easy and comfortable. We are afraid of change, doubtful and resentful, and it is all because we presume that we are just too small to accomplish such a big task.
Though our lives remain unhappy and stuck, we continue to resist change. Stuck in a rut, constantly in a state of paranoia, worry, panic and despair, we are helpless as to what to do about it. This is a time when change is exactly is what is needed.
Change is more achievable that we think! GROW breaks down change into the three basic changes:
- Change of thinking and talk.
- Change of ways.
- Change of relationships.
Where and how to we start to make these basic changes?
To change our thinking and talk we need to be brave enough to look within ourselves and stop pointing the finger of blame and telling ourselves that it is everyone else that needs to change. We need to become aware of our thinking patterns. Once we are aware of our thinking patterns we can aim to change those that simply are not working for us.
To change our ways we need to ‘go by what we know and not by how we feel’ by doing the right and healthy thing because it is right and healthy. We can also compel our muscle and limbs to act rightly in spite of our feelings. This in turn will mean that our feelings will improve as our habits of thinking and acting improve.
It can help to know that all our changes do not need to be major. We may need to direct our thinking to a yard stick of what is good and ordinary. To start with we may need to make small but manageable changes. Even taking a walk (instead of spending all evening indoors) can offer us a new perspective and make us feel proud that we have been able to make a change. Making one small change and then another means that our lives slowly improve and as we start to think and act in different ways, we will eventually notice a change in our relationships.
If we start off by changing just one little thing today, we can be on the road to growth and to a happier life. Our lives can change and all we need to is to take that first step!
To finish with, here are some sayings from GROW to help you along your journey to change:
- Change your losing game. Don’t change your winning game.
- My feelings will get better as my habits of thinking and acting get better.
- I will go by what I know, not by how I feel.