Stages of Change: Understanding How Real Transformation Happens (Episode #88)

On behalf of me and Marianne Michaelis, I'd like to thank you for being a listener of our Human Intimacy Podcast this year. It's always a privilege to spend time with you and I want to express my deep gratitude. If you are ready to take your healing and recovery to the next level, you're ready to deepen your healing and strengthen your connection and gain real tools for meaningful change. I invite you to join us and other Experts at the 2nd Annual Human Intimacy Conference where myself, Marianne and many other leading experts will come together for powerful teaching, live question and answer sessions and provide insightful pre conference conversations to help you get the most out of your conference experience. And right now you can save 50% when you register before December 31st. Please don't miss this opportunity. Visit human intimacy.com and reserve your spot today.

There's something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you lie.

Welcome to the human intimacy podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner with Marianne Michael, licensed clinical social worker. Marianne, how are you today?

Hi Dr. Skinner. Once again, excited to be here. Excited for a enriching conversation, hopefully a helpful conversation for our listeners and viewers.

Today we're going to be talking about what's referred to as the stages of change. And if you haven't heard about the stages change, stay tuned and we're going to walk you through the steps. But let's just put it in a context that may be applicable to our listeners. What do you do when your spouse won't engage in the healing or recovery process? And let's say that you're the person who's wanting to change your life? What does it really look like? What we call the stages of change. So today we're going to be talking about the stages of change and it's created on the model of James Prochaska and his group that wrote a book called Changing for Good. Anyway, we're going to be using that model to discuss how to create lasting change. So Marianne, your first thoughts on this concept of stages of change?

Thank you, Dr. Skinner. I'm excited for this conversation and I know that if I'm coming from a betrayed partner perspective, there can be a lot of feelings of shutdown, a lot of hopelessness. And so just putting this in context, we may be talking about a situation where it feels like there's an issue in our relationship and if we're talking about sexual acting out behaviors, there may be something that I'm not okay with. I may have just discovered something happening and I'm not okay with this continuing in the relationship. Now I may come to my partner and say, hey, this is a big deal. This is a deal breaker for me. This has to change. Or maybe it's not a big deal breaker, but it's something that I'm just really uncomfortable with and I might feel stuck. So to our listeners and our viewers who are joining us, I really hope that this will be a great conversation and helpful for you in understanding how change works. Because it can feel like, well, my partner's not willing to do this. My partner's not willing to do recovery work or go to a group or go to a therapist. And so I might feel really stuck. Like, what can I do? What do I do with this?

And looking at it from the other side, if the person's been acting out, there's also that underlying question, can I change? And I think we also need to address that because often in the people that I've worked with, the, there's sometimes there's a sense of hopelessness, like I've been trying to fight this battle for years and it's just not going away. And I think that's where we often find people like, I don't know how to do this. I really don't know how to do it. So we want to map that out today and we're going to actually start off with what is referred to as the pre contemplation stage. Now, it's kind of a long term pre contemplation, but this is exactly what it is before you're contemplating creating change. In other words, you're humming along, you don't even think it's a problem. And so you might have a spouse come to you or a boss or employer and say, hey, you're not performing. There's something going on here that's not acceptable either in this relationship or at work. So the pre contemplation stage is actually like a blind spot. You don't see that it's a problem if it's drinking or substances. If it's sexual behavior, you might not even see it as a problem because that's maybe the way you grew up. And so you live in a world where I had no idea that this is a problem. And why are you making such a big deal out of it? Is an often phrase that we hear in the pre contemplation stage.

Yeah, let me add to that. I just came out of a class today where there is an individual who is sharing their story regarding their addiction to alcohol and other substances. And they grew up in a Family where that had been the norm. They said that they had been in pre training, then training, then acting, and then the recovery. That was kind of their process or their relationship with alcohol. But they said, you know, from the time of they were about 14 years old, that was where they shifted into the addiction. And from there on, they said, here's the thing for the next. I don't know, it might have been 30 years. I don't exactly remember the timeframe. But they said there was a difference. Two different times in their life. They had gone to some AA type meetings, but they said there's a difference because it was when I really got into recovery, it was like there was a light switch and I was willing. It was about my willingness, and it was interesting. One thing that was different though, is no one ever said, hey, I think you have a problem. No one ever confronted it. They said they danced around it a little bit, but nobody ever said, this is a problem, or we need some boundaries around this. And they weren't sure if somebody had even said that, how they would have reacted. But one of the things they just were very emphatic about was when I changed, it's because I was ready, my willingness was there.

So along that line, the pre contemplation stage, if nobody brings it up, if it's not talked about, I might not even know that it's a problem. And that's what we often find in individuals in relationships where they'll wait, a partner or a spouse will wait, they won't say much because maybe they're afraid of conflict, and maybe that's the environment that they grew up in, and maybe it's killing them inside, but they're not saying anything. And so for the person who's acting out or drinking or whatever it is, it's not really a problem. And then when they are, you often hear those kind of phrases like, well, why are you saying this now? We, I've been doing this for years and now you're bringing it up. And so it's almost like a shock, like, who are you telling me what to do? And so we often get an initial resistance to that. And the reason why is if you're in the pre contemplation stage, you probably don't think that it's that big of a deal. And I've seen that with a lot of individuals with sexual behaviors, because the environment in which they grew up was like, what's wrong with this? Pornography is not that big of a deal. I mean, everybody, my friends, my parents, I mean, my dad, whatever it is, that's just what guys do. And so that's the world they grew up in, Marianne. And so the pre contemplation stage, you don't know what you don't know. It really is a blind spot.

And I would say it might be our normal in a pre contemplation. Maybe we're just going about our lives in our normal because we don't. We don't. As you said, we don't know what we don't know, we don't see what we don't see. It's just, this is our everyday normal and it's been normalized by our culture, by our family of origin. It's just our normal.

Yeah. And then something happens and it's what we might call the proverbial wake up call. We're like, wait a second. And so now we go into a contemplation stage of like, wait a second, I could lose my job. Or if I was drinking, I got a dui, or if it's actually, it's like, oh, my goodness, I could lose my wife or my children. You know, I could lose what matters most to me. And that contemplation is sometimes like a cold bucket of ice water. And I realize I gotta change. That contemplation stage is usually either really a cold bucket of ice water or it's a gradual process where I start thinking, I don't wanna be this way, maybe I should change, maybe I shouldn't. So I don't like being this way. And so it's this contemplation. Maybe, maybe not. Do I really wanna stop drinking? Do I really wanna stop giving up these sexual behaviors? And so you see this? That's why they call it contemplation. Yeah. You're contemplating whether you should change or not.

The way that I view this area is I call it seeds of change. And this is like when you plant a seed. Sometimes when you're planting seeds, sometimes they grow, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they need six to eight weeks to germinate, sometimes they need a little bit longer. But I see this space as an undefined space that maybe somebody says, hey, do you think there might be a problem going on here? And somebody's saying, that might bring it to my awareness. And it could be a shock, but it might be like these seeds that I've just got. And just depending on the environment, that's going to indicate how quickly they're going to grow and what's going to happen next. But it's at least planting the Thought planting the seed that oh, huh. Maybe, maybe there's something there that needs to change. Maybe I could do something differently. What would that even look like? Yeah.

So along those lines, it's not all of a sudden in most cases, in fact, when we talk about the change process, the contemplation stage may last. And so my spouse has been asking me for years to get help for this. And so I've been molding the idea for years. And it's not uncommon for me to meet with individuals who say, you know, yeah, there's been some nudging and nudging, but really I think I need to change and I need to make the shift in my life. And so that's the one that I hear quite frequently with individuals. More of a grad process. And then I hear from betrayed partners, like, could we do this sooner? Could we have awakened them a little bit earlier? Or the person who's acting out, I often will hear, why didn't I do this earlier? Why did I wait so long?

Oh, but you know, Dr. Skinner right there, the answer to that to me is so screaming obvious. There's so much fear in this space. If I change one, I may not know how, I may not have the tools, I may not have the support. I don't have a template. I don't know what that will look like later on. We are so resistant to change because we want to stay where we're at, because at least mostly comfortable there. And so there's usually so much fear. If I have this secret that I've been keeping for 15 years or 5 years or 20 years, and I'm thinking if I share this with my spouse or partner, I might lose everything. What would that look like? And so there's this incredible wrestle, I believe, that's going on here with this. Could I even do that? And what would that look like and how would I get through that? And there's a lot of worst case scenario thinking that really I think has to be sorted through. I think this is an excellent place for a therapist to help with some of that. Let's walk that through. Is that really the case? Let's walk that through. Let's help you see what that might look like. But I think that's the biggest obstacle that I see in this space.

But you're describing fear of change. Like, can I do it? That's really a self perception. Am I capable of it? I often hear that one. But anytime we meet with individuals for the first time, Marianne, or we've been working with an Individual, and maybe someone new comes in with them into a group or something. It's not uncommon for a lot of internal anxiety, like, do I fit? Do I belong? And so it takes so much of that courage to lean into this transition, transitioned from this contemplation stage into what's the next phase? And that's actually the preparation stage. And that's really a very appropriate term. Here we are preparing for change. It's not like you just change overnight. Dr. Prochaska, in the book Changing For Good, he said something interesting. He says, as they were studying people who were overcoming drug and alcohol addiction, most of them, Most of them, 95% had made steps forward, went back, steps forward, went back, steps forward, went back. And he said, that's 95% of the time, which really means that 5% of people go cold turkey. So the preparation is really a critical part here. How prepared am I to create the change? And I think most people don't succeed the first time or the second time or the third time in their change process because they're not prepared for the emotional, rigorous change process. It takes a lot of effort. And if you go in, it's like setting a New Year's goal. And you say, I'm going to stop these behaviors, or I'm going to start doing these behaviors. And you have this huge long list. And then it's New Year's Day, a week later, you've got back to work, you've got emotional stress, you got a boss pushing you to meet a deadline. Whatever the situation is, and that habit or those habits that you wanted to put in place, I can't do it all. And so the preparation for change, it is a also a process. And I think if people took it that way, they would understand I have to prepare to succeed in the recovery and the healing process.

And as you said, this takes time. And this is where I know we're presenting this in a very linear fashion. This step, this step, this step. But there's a lot of flow in and out, back and forth, of, okay, here's the thought. What do I do with that? And I know as a therapist, I think a big part of my job is to say, what if? What would life look like for you without this as a problem? What would you be doing differently? How would you do this? Or even helping my clients to start to plant those seeds of what could that look like? And I know for me, I call myself a percolator. I'll have an idea. And my brain just needs to really just like, think about it and work through it. And I think we're all like that. But we have to get to that place where it's an internal motivation for change, because the external motivation doesn't really create lasting change.

Right. So that preparation stage, if we really were to understand it, it doesn't start and end on a day. It is a continuous effort over time that comes with awareness and knowledge. You don't know what you don't know. So when many people are starting even healing from betrayal, that many people don't know where to begin, maybe I could put a plug in here for our new podcast, Rise, Hope and Healing from Sexual Betrayal. For those individuals who are trying to make sense of early discovery. Because what we don't know, we don't know, we don't know. And the same is true of recovery. You don't know what you don't know yet. So getting information and knowledge is the preparation process. And you might need to talk with people who've succeeded, therapists, clergy, people who've been through a 12 step program, getting a sponsor. And now we're talking about creating a host of potential support and resources so you're prepared for difficult times that you are inevitably going to face.

And I think there's two parts to this. If we're talking about after betrayal, the betrayed partner who's trying to figure out, how do I pick up my life, My whole life has suddenly changed. I didn't know or expect this. And changes have to come. And we're also talking about the partner and where the partner or spouse is in their readiness to change. So I just got discovered that I've been acting out. What do I do moving forward? Do I continue to hide? Do I minimize? Or how do I start stepping into openness and transparency? So there's a lot of dynamics that we're trying to figure out here. And also our relationship has changed inevitably, and now we have to figure out how does it even look moving forward. So this is complicated.

Yeah. And that contemplation that we were just talking about, I'm contemplating change. I want to change. But the preparation and those action steps, like, it's scary to look up a 12 step group and think about, okay, I know the location, but to step into those doors for the first time, or get online for the first time, or attend a group, that's scary. So that preparation is just even mental preparation to think, okay, what's it gonna be like? What if I see somebody I know? What if? And so you see all these fears and then you begin to Realize that preparation stages, you have to have a mental capacity to say, in this moment, I'm gonna face those demons and those fears and I'm gonna do it. Which, again, preparation I can't say enough about, because I think we overlook the difficulty of the preparation stage and we wanna jump straight to taking action. And I think we're gonna be way more successful individuals in their healing and recovery if there's more preparation. You've heard me say over and over again, proper preparation. Right. Because it's a stop start, stop start. And if I don't have the emotional strength, if I don't have that capacity, then I'm going to relapse. I'm going to think what I'm doing is not working. That's why the preparation stage is so important. And it may take months to get fully prepared for sustained changes.

Yeah. Let me add to that. If we're talking about a couple who's dealing with betrayal, I don't think we can say enough about this preparation stage on a couple of different levels. If I've just experienced the betrayal, there's so much that I don't know about my partner's behaviors and I don't know the future. And that is the hardest part. Should I leave? Should I stay in this relationship? Those are two of the biggest, biggest questions that we hear. And I don't know if it's the best thing for my client to stay in their relationship. And they don't know. And so this preparation stage, boy, there's so much at hand here. But if we're looking at the relationship in this space, normally the rule of thumb, or at least what I've been trained to work with my clients and is usually saying, let's slow this down and let's take some time. Let's work on some trauma work, let's work on some boundaries. Let's work on you getting to a place where you're able to manage your triggers. And if I'm working with the acting out partner we're working on, let's help you start getting some sobriety and some recovery under your belt. Let's help you start getting honest with yourself. Usually we want to go through the disclosure process. Those are parts of the preparation work that I think are essential. I think these are essential parts of healing the relationship that can't be rushed. I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I can slow it down and just work on what I can do right here and right now. Knowing that there are other decisions that I will make and can make in the future. And I usually tell my clients, see if you can just put separating or divorcing, see if you can put that on the back burner for about a year and then come back in a healthier place and then reevaluate when you're not so traumatized and when you're seeing things a little bit more clearly. I want to point out it's really hard to talk about change when we are in our fight or flight space. When we're triggered, this is a really hard space to be in. And so this is where we want to slow things down. And usually we want some help and we need lots and lots of support here.

Right. And I think, as you said earlier, there's an ebb and a flow. This isn't just a linear process. We ebb and flow before. And right now, that preparation, sometimes even the most simple actions, which is really the fourth stage of this taking action, individuals in their preparation do begin taking action. I ordered a book, all right. I got the number for a sponsor and I reached out to them. That's taking action.

Sure.

Right. So that process from preparation into taking action, there's a very back and forth process.

And I. There's lots of little micro actions that are happening in between here. So even somebody who's saying, okay, I'm slowing down and I'm not making a major decision about the future right now, but I might have to figure out how to make a boundary and how to keep and maintain a boundary, and that's an action. And there's a lot of fear with that. How do I do that and what's the outcome that I'm letting go of with that happening. So there are lots of layers or micro layers even within this stage.

Yeah. So preparation, taking action, they're very close. But really what we begin to see in that preparation to taking action is I now attend the group, I have a sponsor, I'm reading books, what we would probably call doing our dailies. And that process of taking action, you really want it to be a consistency over time. And some of my favorite stories are individuals that I've been privileged to be a part of in their lives. We're talking years of taking action, attending a group, getting that sponsor, talking with them, continually reading books, learning and growing. And when I see that in individuals, I just applaud them because what they're doing is they're saying, I'm not going to just do this for two months or three months or six months. This is going to be A lifestyle. Until I get to the point, maybe it's as my wife's uncle, who's a recovering alcoholic, 30, working on 40 years of sobriety, where even recently he unfortunately lost his sponsor because of age, but for 40 years they were best friends and he ended up speaking at his sponsor's funeral. Or if we look at that, that's a beautiful relationship now. And so that taking action is not something that I just think, okay, I'm done with it. It's going to be something that you're probably gonna implement for the rest of your life.

And I would say in the 12 step traditions. I wish I could quote this exactly and I know I can't, so I'm not going to attempt in 12 step. The tradition is that this is about adopting a new lifestyle, a different lifestyle, and it's the 12 step recovery lifestyle, that when once you've gone through 12 steps, you don't just say, okay, I'm there, but you go back and you do it over and over. It's like peeling an onion. There's always new layers to work through. And so we as human beings, our bodies, our cells are changing all of the time. And as humans, we're learning, we're growing. And so that change, it makes sense that this is a moving forward, life changing process.

So, Marianne, I want to address one of these especially important concepts that we prepare for and we take action on. I want to give an example of it because to me, this is the application where the rubber meets the road. The number one reason for most relapses is stress across the board. That is what most people is, the reason for their relapse. So the preparation here is I have to prepare for emotionally difficult times. And if I'm not prepared for an emotionally difficult time, the probability of me relapsing is significantly high, going back to an old pattern. So preparation with the emotions means that I have to understand in which situations I'm most vulnerable, where I might react inappropriately, the environment in which I find myself at work or at home. Understanding there are certain environments that are going to be stressful environments and I have to prepare mentally for those places. That's the preparation. So then when I'm in that situation, I know what to do, I know the actions to take. It's not a guesswork. I am reducing the mental strain on my personal bandwidth because I've simplified the process. I know what to do in moments of crisis. That is taking action because I've reduced the mental load that recovery takes. I'll give an example, it's late at night, your wife is asleep. You're in the situation where you've relapsed a hundred times. You've been dealing with stress all day long. You're not prepared for that moment. Mentally, you're probably going to go back to the same behavior because you don't have the path of what you can do as an alternative. So that mental preparation is recognizing, I can't be on the computer this time of night because that makes me at risk. So the mental preparation, I've been stressed today. I probably need to do something like maybe go for a walk. And now you're pre thinking the situation rather than saying, oh, I can handle it, which is the faulty thinking that usually leads people to relapse. So when people begin to understand this process, they're already taking action because they're prepared before they're even in the environment. That, to me, is when people succeed is they're mentally prepared and they take action pre empting a relapse.

You know, this is one of my favorite parts of working with addiction is understanding what's the behavior and what's the ritual and when we understand. So in your example, you talked about at night while the spouse is in bed and I'm stressed and. Or whatever is going on. What I've learned, I think from you primarily, is that we have to understand our patterns. And, and what you didn't say, but I think was really implied. And I really want to bring this to the light. We're talking about learning, we're talking about learning about ourselves. And so if I'm planning or preparing for something, I have to learn what didn't go well last time. Where did I get stuck or caught last time, and what can I do to change that? And so I might tweak it here and, oh, there's still a problem there. So maybe I didn't quite get it. Maybe there's something else I have to shift and change. And so this is an ongoing learning process over and over and over again. And I think that's important because even taking a broad example here, but years ago, my daughter was in gymnastics and the coach said it takes repeating the same movement 6,000 times before you have muscle memory with it for it just to be an automatic thing. And so you have to learn this. Coaches, they would say, oh, you know, turn your head this way, move your body this way. It's all about learning what works, what didn't work, and moving forward. So, so it, it is a process and it's Learning from ourselves and making and figuring out how to make those changes.

Yeah, absolutely. Because you have to have self awareness to make these changes. Now I want to move into the last stage, the maintenance stage. And really the maintenance stage is the example of I continue to repeat the behaviors that work over and over and over. If you're working a 12 step program, you continue to work this 12 steps. If you're working what we refer to as the three circles, where inside is a relapse, the second circle is a slip, and the outer circle are your dailies. You're doing your dailies not because you have to, it's because you're choosing to. This is who I am. I have many individuals that I talk to in the recovery process. It's like that daily ritual. It's their time and they love that time. And I love to hear that because what it tells me is they have created patterns and habits that reinforce the recovery and it gives them confidence. So the maintenance stage is actually doing what you've been doing and doing it intentionally to the point where it almost becomes automatic. I don't even have to think about it because it's just almost natural for me to do this. And I've been doing it long enough. Which gets us to a concept called automaticity. Great word, right? So automaticity is when you do something without thinking about it. It happens automatically. And when we look at habits, most of the research shows that most of our habits take about 66 days to create. So after 66 days of making my bed or doing something that I'm monitoring, watching food intake or whatever it may be, after 66 days, you do it without even thinking about it because it's now become automatic. And when I work with individuals in the recovery process, I say, let's just create these patterns for up to 66 days to enhance the automaticity of certain habits you're trying to create. And that's a really powerful strategy that I use with clients who have really been struggling to cement into their minds a process of change. So automatically, if I have done it for 66 days, the probability that I'm going to do it the next day is about 90 to 95%.

That's a huge percentage.

Oh, it's incredible. It's incredible. Now I should say the more complex the task, the more time it will take. So if there's complexity, it may take me more time, but in general, on average it's about 66 days. So thinking about the change process in this way, it gives us a perspective of I just need to stay strong in doing these things to the point where I'm just starting to do over and over without even having to think about it.

Yeah. Can I shift us a little bit, Dr. Skinner? Before we wrap up, I want to kind of go back to where we were starting with, what do I do if I'm a spouse or a partner and I'm needing my partner to change? And I'm feeling so stuck. Hey, will you go to this recovery meeting? Will you go see a therapist? And I feel helpless because I need change in the relationship, but my partner doesn't see it as a problem or they're not willing to engage with the solutions that I'm trying to help them find.

This is such an important topic. I think it needs to be our next podcast topic. And because what you're talking about there is how do we create change in a relationship where we're not on the same page? Maybe my spouse isn't aware of what's going on. They don't see it as a problem, or I don't know how to communicate with them to help create some change. And so I think in the next podcast, Marianne, we really should talk about breaking patterns that we've been stuck in as a couple. And in particular, what I hear you describing there is a situation where I want it to be different. I'm begging for it to be different, and my spouse doesn't see it as a problem. So I want to take this conversation and apply the same principles of pre contemplation, contemplation preparation, taking action and maintenance to the couple's relationship and apply it to them as they try to have or create meaningful change in their relationship.

Okay. I want to add to that just for our viewers or listeners who might be like, but wait, you just put this, this on the table and you're just gonna end with that.

And yeah, what that is is that's a teaser for next podcast. Right?

I want to give, like, this much resolution at least, and then we can build on this in our next podcast. But just to give some resolution to this, I would say you start with yourself, work with yourself, because that is what you can change. That's what's within your power. And so you've got to start with yourself. So that's my.

That's your teaser, right? And. And I'm going to say, what are you going to do when your spouse is in the pre contemplation stage and you're like, we got to get moving, or, I don't know if I can stay in this relationship, really, that's the part that I think many couples like, I feel hopeless or I feel helpless. I don't know how to communicate. And we're not getting. We're not creating this change that I long for. How do I best communicate that? That really will be our next conversation of creating changes in patterns that are not working in your marriage.

All right, thank you so much for our conversation today. Dr. Skinner and I look forward to our next podcast.

Me too. And to our listeners, we hope you have a great week. Just want to reiterate. We have Reclaim, Healing from Pornography and Rebuilding your life. And we have Rise, Hope, and Healing from sexual betrayal. Two new podcasts. You're gonna be able to find them on our podbean, but you'll also find them on our website, Human Intimacy. Com. So wanna encourage you if you haven't been listening to those, we'd encourage you to do that. And then a special announcement that we're gonna be having soon is the 2026 Human Intimacy Conference, the second annual coming up. We'll get you dates to that soon, but get ready to put those on your calendar. We'd love to have you join us. Marianne, thank you so much for being with us today. And to our listeners, you are awesome.

Thank you. Thank you.