Millions of people seek out self help literature annually, reaching for ways to improve their lives.  Why do people so often find that their self help techniques stop working?  Why is it so easy to "get it" and so hard to "keep it" when it comes to making change?

The answer is so simple, but so hard to do.  We need to approach what we are wired to avoid.

We need to notice, feel, and be with dissonance, the bodily sensations of vulnerability that feel like anxiety.

The way we pay attention to dissonance - small sensations in the body that tell us we are vulnerable - is the foundation for personal growth.  And all the ways we ignore or misinterpret those sensations keep us stuck.

Growth asks us to embrace the feeling of vulnerability that is at the heart of being human.  That is a physical experience.  It is in our bodies in a moment to moment flow.  Are you willing to enter in to what it feels like in the deeply uncomfortable place of not having ultimate control?  Especially when it is something you deeply long for?  

Will you choose to stay with yourself in your not knowing how it will turn out?  And will you stay with yorself when you cannot make it be the way you want?  

We stretch into our growth, we accelerate our maturation when we commit to ourselves in that difficult experience of limits to control over outcomes that matter to us.  When we stay with ourselves there, even though it does not feel good.  Especially because it does not feel good. 

Our real sustainable growth calls for being with ourselves in the immediate and complex experience of what we are feeling, and then reflecting upon that experience. 

It is not enough to simply give yourself a new script to say to yourself.  Growth is not a matter of insight.  Growth is not just thinking about things in new ways.  Growth involves risking having new experiences (typically things you have avoided feeling in the past), and holding them in your reflective awareness.  Having and holding.  Growth emerges out of that relationship between you and you.

When we can have the bodily experience of dissonance and hold ourselves there with warm interest and nonjudgement, we open ourselves to two powerful forces of growth.  We face and feel and accept our limits, we come to some terms with our truth, and out of that we are moved to grow via adaptation.  As we witness and reflect on our multidimensional inner experience we recognize our complexity, and  we are moved to grow via integration.

You have a choice to approach the truth of what it feels like to be you.  Dissonance is your personal phonecall inviting you home to your body as you touch and are touched by this vulnerable life.  We are called by dissonance to come towards ourselves with compassion and be with what that feels like in the body. 

We have the choice to accept ourselves in the place of "I can't" (and grow) or to reject and abandon ourselves there (and stay stuck).  We have the choice to recognize the magnificent richness of our inherent complexity or to live unwitnessed and undifferentiated.

The key to growth that lasts is right here and right now, in your body.  Your awareness of dissonance and your choice to approach it with warmth, interest, and nonjudgement is the foundation for self help change that you can make and  keep.

Having your experience and holding yourself in the light of your reflective awareness is the basis for growth that lasts.  Will you enter into this relationship with yourself?  You are so worth it.

Photo Credit: DB's Excellent Photos