Breaking Through Barriers: How to Create Lasting Change in Life and Relationships (Podcast #35)

Something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh. Welcome to the human intimacy podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner with you today. Today I'll be flying solo, and I want to focus on a concept that I've been experiencing as a therapist. My hope is that as we talk about this concept, that it will give you insight and ideas and how you can create change in your life. Our topic is how to create a breakthrough when we feel stuck. Over the past few months, I've had the opportunity to sit down with many clients. I've reviewed my notes from maybe years past, and there's common themes that I hear in my office. Things like, why can't I change? Why is this so hard? And sometimes it's happening in relationships. Why do we feel stuck? Why can't we solve problems? Today, I want to walk you through the change process. It's something that I think if we spend more time thinking about, we can actually accelerate the change that we want to create by learning how change works. So I'm excited. You're with me. Let's go ahead and get started. I'd like to begin by giving a little bit of background on the change process. As a therapist, we sit in tests as we go through school, graduate school, and one of the questions that we're asked is to write on how to create change in our clients or how to help our clients create change. Now, I've given this a lot of thought throughout the years because really, change is an internal process. So really, as a therapist, what I'm trying to help my clients do is create the desire, the guidance, the direction, so they can create the change that they want. So really, what a therapist is doing is helping clients create change. The way they think, the way they feel, the way they act, the way they believe. Now, if you really break down the change process, I just identified what we can change. In fact, I would love to hear from you if you can think of another thing that we can change. But I'm going to reiterate this. I believe there are four core things that we can change or that changes when we change. One is the way we think. The next is the way we feel. That's followed by our behaviors. Behavioral change. We can change our behaviors. And the next. And the final one is we can change what we believe, what we believe about ourselves, the world around us. So when we change, ultimately, the change process incorporates change in thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and beliefs. So, as a therapist, I look at this change process as a question. How do I help My clients recognize the change process. How do we do that? In a way that really, in many ways motivates them, that gives them hope that change is possible. So as you think about change in your life, think about something today. And this is my invitation. Imagine you and I are just going for a walk. We're talking about the change process, and I'm inviting you to think about how do I change? Like, think about something that you've changed in your life. Maybe it's something big or maybe it's something small, something that you really have a desire, you want to change, and you've put your heart and effort into it. A few years ago, I had a situation, this is two years ago, had a personal situation where I had been experiencing some health problems. And so I went to different doctors, and really they weren't able to pinpoint what my problem was. So I ended up going to a recommendation, on recommendation of a friend, going to this doctor. He was actually a chiropractor and a nutritionist. Kind of an interesting combination. And so as we, as we met, he said, I'd like you to do. I'd like to do some blood work, and as a part of your nutrition, I'd like to see kind of what's happening with your blood work. So I went and did quite expensive blood work. I don't know, maybe $300 or so. And I got it back, and he's looking at it and he stops and he says, you've got a problem. And I thought, well, what do you mean I've got a problem? He said, no, you have a problem. He said, if you don't change your diet, it's going to kill you sooner than later. Now I had no idea. So he's looking at my blood work. He pinpoints some very specific things. And he basically gave me a diet that was much like a Mediterranean diet, basically gluten free. And he didn't say that I needed to be gluten free, but he in essence basically did say, you need to change your eating habit. So I went home, drove home that day, actually quite discouraged, thinking, okay, I've got to change my entire diet. But little did I know what that even meant. So I get home and I've got the list of things that he recommends, maybe a new diet plan. And I look in our cupboard and I say, okay, can't eat that and can't eat that, and I can't eat that. And so by that point, I'm like, turn to my wife and say, I got a problem. I went to the doctor today, and here's the list of things. And she looks at the list and together I'm like, okay, what am I going to eat? And so over the next few days, I had to really look at my eating habits and I had to change. And it was truly one of the more difficult things that I've experienced in my life in terms of just eating habits. Certain foods in particular, gluten, breads, pastas, donuts. Those were a couple of my weaknesses, especially donuts from a local grocery store. They seem to be pretty good. And so at the end of the day, I think, okay, I can change this. So the next morning I get up and okay, can't have cereal. So I began to change my morning diet routine, and that was hard. And then I drove into work and I thought about all of the places that I normally went to for lunch, and soon I realized I can't eat there either. And so I had to find new places to go to, and my diet changed. I went from not knowing what to do, and it was truly one of the more difficult changes I had to make, have had to make in my life. And I began to think about the change process, not just from what that forced me to do now. I didn't have to go gluten free. He didn't say I had to. He just said, here's food, and if you change your diet, you'll feel better. Interestingly enough, over the next few months, I lost about 20 pounds in actually a pretty short period of time. I began feeling better. The inflammation in my body had significantly gone down. I was taking some natural supplements that helped me just feel better. Muscle strength and overall just energy increased. And I thought, holy cow, why didn't I do this earlier? I mean, I didn't know. And that's just part of the change process. I did not know. And I think that's true of many people who are wanting to create change in their personal lives and in their relationship lives. Sometimes we simply don't know what to do. And so today, I'm inviting you to come on a ride with me. I'm not asking you to change your diet, although you may choose to do that, But I am asking you to come on a ride of the things that you want to change in your life, but haven't known how to. Last year, I created an online course at Human intimacy called Change 2.0. Had a phenomenal time going through the course content and having participants go through this change 2.0 content and what I want to share with you Today is some of the key concepts that I discovered in the change process, and I want to share it with you today. And so I'm going to begin this journey by asking you to identify something that you want to change in your life. So just again, it may be in your personal behaviors, it might be in your relationship and how you interact with your partner. It may be how you interact with your child as a parent. Doesn't really matter. Maybe you want to save more money. Maybe you want to lose weight, maybe you want to start exercising. Maybe you want to save money so you can go on a trip. Whatever it is that you want to create change with today, I want to give you that formula that will help you create the patterns of change that are sustainable if you follow them. All right, I'm going to start off with this concept, identifying what you want to change. Now you've identified what we're going to say is your what you want to change. I'm going to ask you to go a little bit deeper because far too often we settle for, okay, I want this, I want to exercise more. But I'm going to invite you to think a little bit deeper here and ask the question, why? Why do you want to change that? Why does it matter to you if you've got pen and paper with you or you're typing on a computer? I would invite you to pause the podcast now and write down your what and your why. Now, if you're driving, that's okay. Take your time. When you get home, identify your what and your why, what you want to change and why you want to change it. All right now we've looked at the foundation of your what and your why. Let's turn our attention to the patterns that you're going to have to change or stop. In other words, you might understand what you are looking to change. And let's just give an example here. Let's say for me personally, it was that I had to change my diet. Why? Because I wanted to feel healthier, I wanted to be stronger. I didn't want to have as much inflammation, which was influencing how I slept. It was influencing every aspect of my life. In fact, I couldn't even sleep on the right side of my body because my side pain was so bad and so intense. So for me, my what and why, it was given to me. In other words, it was forced upon me. I had to change. So I began doing this diet and I began looking at what foods I could eat, where I could eat. And my wife, fortunately for me, a blessing. She Changed some of our meals to be gluten free. And that was tremendous help to me. What I recognize is the inflammation went down. So as I started looking at this process, there were things I had to stop doing. Often I would go down to our local grocery store, buy some donuts, bring them home for the kiddos, and I was the best dad on the earth. And all of a sudden I wasn't the best dad on the earth. Now, I say that jokingly. I think my kids still love me. Jokingly. I love you, my children, you guys are awesome. But what I want to say here is I couldn't go down to the store and get the donuts anymore. And all of a sudden I had to realize I couldn't do Sunday cookies anymore. I like to make my favorite pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. All of a sudden I couldn't do that anymore. And so everything began to shift. And the patterns of going to the store on a set Friday or Saturday night and picking up some donuts for the kids, or Sunday making some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, that pattern had to change. In other words, I had to unlearn the things or the habits that I had acquired. Now that's a behavioral changes, right, if you think about it. But it's no different than changing thought patterns. We have to change our thoughts, we have to change our emotions. If we don't think different, if we don't feel different, then we continue to think and feel the same way. So if you find that you are often anxious, or you find that your mind is racing, or you find that you are in a pattern with your partner, there, you're often angry. I'm inviting you to think about this next step as what do I need to unlearn? So you've identified what you want to change. Maybe you don't want to be as angry. Maybe you want to be more patient. Maybe you want to be more understanding of your child. Whatever it is that you want to change, you've identified your what and your why. That next part is what do I need to unlearn? What are the behaviors or the patterns that need to be altered or changed? This leads to tremendous insight and it's often overlooked in the change process is breaking down the previous patterns and not recognizing what needs to be changed. So as we begin this process, we've got the what, we've got the why. Now we understand what we need to unlearn, the patterns that haven't been working for us. Now we shift it into the next gear. How do I create the changes that I want to create. And this is where the change process actually gets more enjoyable. But for many of us, it's difficult because it's the implementation. A few years ago, there was this concept and it was put forward, and we don't really know who brought it forward, but it's a concept of creating change in the learning process. But it's also been applied to businesses. It's incorporated into therapeutic settings. And the idea is, when we don't know what we don't know, that's called unconscious incompetence. When I was going to doctor after doctor, little did I know it was actually my blood work that was going to reveal that my diet was actually killing me. I didn't know that. But now I have the information, and now I have choice. See, that's just the interesting thing about the change process. When you get the information, you can realize, okay, I have to either make change or not. And so naturally, we shift from this idea of unconscious incompetence. Now it's being brought to the forefront, which makes us consciously incompetent. I did not realize all the change that it would require to change my diet. So now I'm consciously aware that I don't know how to do this. Quickly, we're reading recipes, looking at the ingredients in what we're eating, and I realized I had to shift to salads. I had to shift away from the breads. And then all of a sudden, I'm starting to look for corn tortillas rather than flour tortillas. And we start looking at the things that are possible. Again, this is a process of conscious incompetence. I now know that I have been doing something that's been harming my body. Again, the same is true in our interactions with other people and in our own thought patterns. Let me give you an example. How do you speak to yourself? If I said to you, I am, and you said, I am smart or I'm so stupid, I should have done this differently. Listen to your internal dialogue. In other words, I'm asking you to pay attention to your internal dialogue. How do you speak to yourself that internal dialogue? It may be an unconscious incompetence. In other words, you're beating yourself up and you don't even realize how much it's dominating how you think and how you feel. So now I'm inviting you to think about your thought processes. How am I thinking about myself? How am I interacting with my partner? And if you have the insight into the pattern, you recognize, am I acting incompetence in a way That I want to, or am I acting in incompetence? Am I thinking in incompetence? In other words, I'm beating myself up. That's never, I repeat, when we think negative about ourselves, that doesn't help us solve problems. Contrast I'm stupid versus that was a mistake. I need to improve that. Even how we talk to ourself needs to be shifted and altered here. So shifting this concept into what I'm going to now shift from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence, that's a very difficult and painful place in the change process. When I now recognize that what I'm doing isn't working, it's really difficult. Now, with more practice and awareness and insight, I begin to act on new ways. I began to change my diet. I found restaurants that had good salads. And I'm really not a rabbit. And I don't. Honestly, I don't like salad a whole lot. But over the last two years, I have really grown to like salad. In particular, if you want one of my favorites, try the Wendy's apple pecan salad. Just try it sometime. Let me know what you think. Anyway, my concept is this. Now I've got the awareness I know I need to shift. I start changing my behaviors, my diet begins to change, and all of a sudden I'm feeling healthier. Now, that's what we would refer to as consciousness competence. I'm actually aware of what's actually working. The same is true when we change our thoughts and our emotions. When I start feeling different and thinking different, I recognize the difference inside of me. When I work with people in the recovery process, I know they're making progress when I see their thoughts changing and their emotions shifting. I also see behavioral changes. The first time somebody picks up the phone when they're struggling with a temptation or a craving, they reach out to a sponsor or to a friend. I know they're making progress. When I see somebody who's been beating themselves up, emotionally anxious and really feeling like there's something wrong with them, and I hear them say things. You know, I used to think that there was something wrong with me. Now I just realized that's been my anxiety, my fears. I begin to hear their thinking patterns. I can see it. Conscious competence. Beautiful, beautiful process. And the final one here is when it's unconscious competence. And that's where we see the greatest and most beautiful shifts. Because it's done without even thinking about it. Instead of beating myself up, I think I could have done that different. Instead of going to the Unhealthy foods. I see myself going to the market and saying, oh, that's good. I know that's good. And I know it's going to be good for my body. And so every morning, almost every morning, I wake up and I have a green smoothie. My favorite green smoothie. Again, I'm just going to tell you my favorite green smoothie. Take some spinach, put a banana in it, half a banana, and then put some really good mango, frozen mango, fantastic smoothie. Love it. But what is that doing? It's actually healthy for me. Unconscious competent. It's a competence, it's a habit. It's a pattern that I'm now applying. Now, this is a process. We go from this unconscious incompetence to conscious or unconscious competence. And that's really part of the change process. When we do things without even thinking about it, that's when you know you've created good change, is you're doing things that you never did before and you're doing it without even thinking about it. So that's part of the change process. Now I want to introduce you to the next concept we've talked about. The what, the why, the how of it. I'm going to spend a little bit more time. Remember, part of the how is there's things that we need to unlearn and then we're shifting into conscious habits, consciousness, and doing things intentionally. So now we focus on the how of change, the what, the why and the how. And I'm not going to pretend in this podcast that I'm going to be able to give you all of the hows of change. But let's just put it this way. There are many unique approaches you can create in your life or put into your life to create the changes you want. Simple things like is that habit stacking too, is being accountable to somebody. When we tell somebody what our goals are, the success rate increases significantly. That's one of the reasons why 12 step groups or educational groups work. It's because we're being accountable to other people. If I tell you I'm going to do something, then I'm telling you I want to be accountable. I'm much more likely to do it now if I just tell myself that, less likely to do it. So habit stacking, accountability. And then one of my favorite ones is actually increasing the awareness through journaling and putting a plan in action, whether that's a smart goal. And again, there's a whole lot more information on smart goals, but you can look that one up. I'm not going to cover all of that today. But I invite you to think about this change process. So now let me go back to habit stacking. Habit stacking is taking something that you're already doing well, a positive habit, and putting something or attaching another behavior or thought to it. As an example, let's say that I was my habit. Every day I go for a walk. What I found is walking was great. And I did this every day for 10 years. For 10 years I walked 10 or 11,000 steps. Every day, Monday through Sunday, I walked 10,000 steps. Now what I did is habit stacked. I put into that equation music, learning and what we would say is spiritual holy writ into my walk. So I would take a healthy habit in this situation. I would put on my earbuds and I would listen to audiobooks. And over a 10 year period of time, I listened to over a hundred books, which increased my knowledge. So while I'm walking, I've got another habit now and it's listening and learning. Now I didn't do that every day because sometimes I was with friends and it's enjoyable to run with friends or walk with friends. But when I was by myself in that process, hours and hours and hours was spent learning. Habit stacking is when you take a positive thing and you add something to it. Usually it's either right after or right before you have it stack. So another one, you brush your teeth, you floss, another one, you get up in the morning, you do a specific positive behavior. Let's say that you do some exercise and then you eat some healthy food. And what you're doing is you're putting positive things upon positive things and it creates more efficiency and effectiveness in your patterns. So that's called habit stacking. And these are just some of the concepts that I cover in the change 2.0 course. Now I'm going to be doing the change 2.0 course again. If you want to sign up, you can. And it's, it's, again, it's a part at human intimacy change 2.0 and here's the deal. I offer it to families. And the reason why is because I want families to create healthy patterns and healthy habits. So change 2.0, it's designed for individuals, couples, families, where they sign up, they go through the course together and they are accountable to each other on the goals that they're working on. It's a great way to create healthy habits in your life and to be accountable with the people that you care the most. And in addition, what I do is I actually join you. So starting In January of 2025, I will be going through this with you, except I'm going to start earlier. Starting in November, I'm going to have once a month in November and December, I'm going to be joining you and we're going to be accountable to each other. So if you're interested in joining me and others who want to change whatever it is you want to change, change 2.0, you can find it@human intimacy.com. all right, I'm going to close up with a couple more concepts. The next concept I want to introduce is the concept of changing our beliefs. Now, as we look at the change process, I really believe that if we don't change our core belief, then change is limited. In fact, as a therapist, one of the things that I have seen accelerate the change process, it's actually related to changing what I believe. Now, as we think about changing and of itself, do we believe we can change? Do we believe it's possible? But we also have to look at what we do believe. I'm not enough. I am a failure. There's something wrong with me. Why can't I be like others? And sometimes we have limiting beliefs because they have been in our lives for years and years and years and we've adopted them. Going back to the concept of unconscious incompetence, we have adopted them and we don't even question them because we just believe they're true. So unconscious incompetence is these patterns, these negative thought beliefs that we never challenge anymore. So the change process. As a therapist, one of the most powerful ones I've observed is when people recognize that their beliefs are no longer true. And I have found personally, when I look at my core beliefs, some of them have not been healthy. And so changing them has helped me in my change process. So one of the final concepts I want to introduce to you today is you need to understand your beliefs and how they may be limiting you in your growth and in your progress. All right, so now we've talked about those core beliefs. Think about it this way. Our beliefs are so powerful that we act consistent with them. One of my favorite stories about this actually came from runners before the four minute mile was broken. This is in the 1940s, there was a belief that it was impossible for humans to run under a four minute mile. Now, Roger Bannister we. If you know the history of the first mile that was broken, Roger Bannister was the first to break it. But simultaneously there was a man named John Landy. John Landy was in Australia and he was also trying to break the four minute mile. These two runners, absolutely phenomenal. There was another one from Kansas West Santee. These two were, I mean these three were just incredible athletes but they were trying to break that four minute mile. And what occurred is a fascinating thing. The knowledge of the day was changed when Roger Bannister broke that four minute mile. A few weeks later John Landy, he also broke the four minute mile. And then the two of them were competing and they both broke it in the same run. Phenomenal run. Now if you've ever seen somebody run a sub 4 minute mile, it is a thing of beauty. This last year, or actually this year in January, I had the opportunity to witness a phenomenal runner, Aiden Troutner. He broke this four minute mile and watching somebody run that fast for that period of time, it is incredible. But the belief at the time it wasn't possible. And since then over a thousand people have run a sub 4 mile. Some runs, 4, 5, 6 people are breaking the 4 minute mile. If we want to change our beliefs, we have to adopt and accept a possibility that change is possible. If you're looking for change in your patterns, if you're looking at change in your relationship, it's a simple formula. It starts with changing the way you think, the way you feel, the way you act and ultimately your beliefs change. So if I summarize today, think about the things that you've been thinking, the way that you've been feeling, the way that you've been acting and the beliefs that guide those actions, the beliefs that influence you day in and day out. So change. Change the way we think, change the way we feel, change the way we act. And now we need a specific plan. And I'm going to tell you if I close out on this, it's the plan. It needs to be clear, it needs to be specific, it needs to be time focused. It is recognizing I have a plan in place. And that ultimately is where I think most people fail in the change process is they don't prepare to succeed. So my final concept today is if you want to create change, you really need to prepare for the change process and preparation. Maybe the most important thing you will do to succeed. My final thought for today. A few years ago I was training for a marathon. I'll never forget one day I started off and it was cold outside. I had earmuffs around at my ears and the top of my head was not covered but the ears were covered because it was chilly. And I started off the run and There was a cloud coming and that cloud came and it rained on me. It held on me, then it cooled down and snowed on me. By the time I got home, I think that was 1112 mile run. My head was white. I thought to myself, what in the world am I doing? It just at that point it was like I had sun and rain and hail and snow. And it was the habit, it was the pattern, it was the preparation. See, the whole concept I'm trying to get across here is if we're going to create change, we have to recognize there are always going to be barriers. If there's something in your pattern that you're doing with your partner and you want to change it, it's not going to be easy. Change is never ever easy. Because we are people who base our lives on patterns. And interrupting those patterns, your body throws a temper tantrum, it doesn't like that change. So we ultimately have to be willing to go through that process and recognize this is not going to be easy. But here's the promise, it will be worth it. Alright, I want to close out today by thanking you, the listeners. We've now had over 12,000 downloads and I am just grateful to you for listening, for letting me be a part of your life journey. My hope is that as I go through different topics here, that it gives you insight and awareness and how you can improve your life. And I invite you to think through today some of the concepts and if you want more information, come join us. Change 2.0 we're going to be starting November, December. We're going to having some what I'm going to call preparatory for change. So when we get ready for the New Year's change, we're going to already have some thoughts in mind. We're going to set some goals and we're going to carry out in a 12 week course together. I hope you'll join me, but if not, I invite you to implement the change in your process. Whatever it is you want to change, spend the time, prepare, think about your what, your why and practice, get the how in place and ultimately find more joy. If I can close today, find more joy in this life. It's filled with opportunities. Life is too short to sit in suffering. So I invite you to find joy. Thank you very much for letting me be a part of your life journey. You take care. Bye bye.