personal development – Page 3

Reading Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change”: Chapter 5 – The Benefits of Hitting Bottom

August 14 2018

Chapter 5 of Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change” is a challenging chapter in terms of how universally applicable it is. The premise of the chapter, entitled The Benefits of Hitting Bottom, is that some therapists believe that true change will only happen once you hit rock bottom, and you have nowhere to go but up.

It’s a common theme in the narratives of lots of people who turned their lives around and became “success” stories that are shared, repeated for others as inspiration, the “if she/he was down so low and crawled back up, I can do it too”. It is almost de rigeur it seems for addiction stories, and certainly so in pop culture. The arc almost writes itself:

Average Joe/Jane goes through life;
An EVENT happens and they start taking painkillers;
They get addicted;
They lose everything, including their spouse and kids;
They have an epiphany while lying on the bathroom floor of a dive bar in SoHo;
They quit cold turkey and start getting their shit together;
They claw their way back into a semblance of normalcy;
They`re journey encourages them to help others find their way out too.

The media and the internet loves these kinds of stories, and I confess, I think most of them are complete and utter horseshit. Partly because the narrative is too perfect — “something happened TO them” that started the spiral i.e., there is nothing negative about them, it could happen to anyone. Except often when you poke the surface of the story, you find out that they were a recreational drug user already. But, you know, THAT was under control, no issues. Then, because of the DRUGS, they lost everything, but the story omits the fact that they were already heavily in debt to begin with, and had never held a steady job for more than a couple of months. Or the bathroom floor was just them stopping in while passing by, and they slipped and fell. They weren`t passed out high. But the arc says they bottomed out.

Really? Because there are LOTS of stories out there of people who have bottomed out way lower than that. I`ll come back to that in a moment. But then, by the grace of God (who by the way wasn`t involved in the story up until now apparently), they manage to crawl their way out on their own and are now independent. So, without any training other than they dragged themselves out, they now want to help others, despite the fact that their self-help was partly what gives them their new life, i.e., doing it on their own gave them a boatload of confidence that will now be denied the person they`re helping because they`re not doing the same thing on their own, they`re getting helped. Not that being helped is a bad thing, but if the whole idea is “do what I did”, well, they’re not doing what they did.

Now, separate from my BS detector going off every time I see someone claiming they`ve ascended spiritually or intellectually on their own and now want to become evangelical about the ONE TRUE WAY to change, I am strongly critical of what “bottoming out” even means to them or the universality of approach. As I said above, lots of people bottom out at different places…some might bottom out if there child doesn’t get into their preferred middle school. Others bottom out when they have debt collectors calling. Other bottom out when they’re selling their body for foodstamps and living on the street. Everyone has a different threshold for when the price of whatever they`re doing gets too high for them, and they say, “Okay, I’m out.” They’re fine up until that point, vaguely dissatisfied perhaps or the addiction is too strong, and they hit a point where they say, “here, and no further”. The proverbial and mental line in the sand that once they cross it, they’re suddenly motivated to change.

But I hate the term bottoming out because it suggests someone has nothing left to lose and hence the reason they are willing to change. Except they can always lose something else, even if Dante’s view of hell only had 9 rings.

Part of the reason I don’t like the term is often, as I mentioned above, the therapy community considers bottoming out as a pre-requisite for change. Often in addiction treatments, for example, a tough love view of “they’ll change when they lose everything”. Almost where some people have thought, “Great, I want to change, now I just need to accelerate my bottoming out to get to that point faster.” Not necessarily consciously, but there are those who have told stories of doing exactly that, and partly under a therapist’s care. Including spiritual scammers who convince them material possessions are the devil’s playground and they need to lose it all to experience rebirth, so why not donate it to the scammer’s very helpful associates.

For me, a great question is not only the typical “what is your break-even point where your benefits equal your costs” but rather “how can we change your perception so that the break-even point is higher than you think”. We already have tons of research on positive goal-setting where we are told to chunk large goals into smaller goals and thus you can achieve the smaller ones to start with (assuming they’re realistic) and moving up and on from that early success. But negative goal-setting could work the same way — chunk out a larger fear (i.e. “I never want to weigh more than 300 pounds”) into smaller fears (i.e. “I never want to weigh more than 275, 285, 295”) until the 295 becomes the new 300, or the 275 becomes the new 295. Raising the threshold of what they feel is their break-point before they get to it. Kottler words this as raising the “negative feelings” about the current state of affairs in order to increase motivation/impetus to change, although I’m not sure I like the idea of “feeling worse to get better”, a little too simplistic and too close to hurting yourself to get better.

The chapter struggles with the concept, much in the same way I do, namely that “addiction specialists have a name for the level of desperation it takes to overcome resistance — hitting rock bottom” while researchers call it “someone’s relative degree of impairment”, although I don’t think “bottoming-out” is a prerequisite and what “bottoming-out” means depends on a case-by-base basis. For me, I think the key element is that it isn’t the bottoming-out that matters so much as an open confrontation by a person of what the problem is and what the costs and benefits are that are keeping the situation “as is”. The bottoming-out, so to speak, is just a manifestation that causes the person to confront their costs. Until that happens, the change won’t occur. Kottler talks about how often change won’t happen until there is no alternative, but I am not so certain. As I said, there is always the alternative of death or descending lower to another ring of hell. Instead, they choose to try and rise, a conscious and cognitive-based choice. I do like the recognition however that if the outcome seems uncertain, people will tend to drag their feet on the commitment/implementation until they are more certain their “solution” will work.

Near the end of the chapter, there is a small phrase that jumps out at me, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. While everyone wants to know about preconditions for change, most of the answers are “it depends”. However, Kottler says:

The single best predictor of a successful change effort is the degree of support you receive from others.

I get the theory — you can’t do it alone — but the word that bothers me in that sentence is “degree”. I agree that support is required, but I think it is more about the presence of support, friends or family, or professionals, not the extent of the support as an universal benefit for everyone going through change. I have reflected a great deal on the change I went through between ages 29 and 33. I stripped my psyche down to the component parts, I tweaked and rearranged them, and I put them back together. Did I put them back in the best order possible? I have no idea. But I liked the result. Could I have done it more effectively or efficiently with professional help? Absolutely. Except I wasn’t in the headspace to get professional help at that point, I wouldn’t have accepted it.

Yet I did have support through friends. Three friends in particular, Sebastien, Sara, and Aliza, were privy to my thoughts [perhaps under the hashtag #TMI!], and frequently served as sounding boards as I worked through some of my mental rebuild and tested out my latest theory. And while I don’t want to dismiss some of the EXTREMELY long conversations some of those sessions lasted (Yes, Aliza, I’m talking about you and one particular 12-hour marathon!), there also times where I would sequester myself for 4-6 weeks while I did my homework on myself. So I don’t know if it is about degrees of support so much as (a) having support at all; (b) having support available when needed; and (c) quality of support targeted to the issue being addressed. For example, I knew I had friends. And they were open to conversations about personal things, not just chatting about the weather. But much of what I was trying to figure out what I wanted out of life, and if that life was to be shared with someone else, what I was looking for in a partner.

In retrospect, one of the things I got “right” in my approach is that I did it while single, and remaining so through the process. There is a fair amount of research on addiction treatments and the challenges posed not only for the person in recovery (i.e., anchoring themselves to people who might have enabled their previous behaviour or who harbor resentments for past behaviour) but also for the partner (i.e., the massive changes going on in the other person, often leading to unpredictable behaviour, inconsistent mood management, etc.). I can’t imagine what I would have done to someone else if they were “with” me during that time. Take for instance a serious relationship scenario, where not surprisingly, one of the key questions might be if both people want kids. And during that four years, I didn’t know the answer to that question because I didn’t even know who I was, let alone who else I wanted in my life or what I had to offer. Imagine doing the work while a relationship clock ticks alongside you asking, “So, you got your shit together yet?”.

Massive change over 4 years as I figured out who I was. But my bottoming out, so to speak, didn’t look like most people’s. For me, there was some financial stuff involved, but not life-ending. My father had passed away, and I was in grief. Sure, that was going on, but that’s part of life. But the real “bottoming-out” was simply the end of a relationship where neither of us were “in love” with the other person anymore, but I was still pursuing it. And in my head, I still saw it going towards marriage. Three thoughts were existing in my head simultaneously — a) I wasn’t in love; b) she wasn’t in love with me; and c) we weren’t “right” for each other long-term, and yet I was still bopping along thinking naïvely about the future. And it shocked me. Could I really be so messed up mentally that I would marry someone who was nice and we were friends, rather than holding out for “true love”?

And once I started poking the surface, I realized that I was drifting. Letting the winds of fate blow me wherever life took me, there was no real control in place of asking myself what I wanted, I just let life guide me. Yet that’s not who I wanted to be. I’m more analytical, rational than that…I didn’t think exactly in these terms, but I was more of a planner. A directed life. Yet it wasn’t how I was choosing to live.

Overall, I come down to believing that bottoming-out is the wrong focus — it should be more about figuring out in advance what you think your break-point is, and trying to slow your descent before you hit it, while also potentially raising the threshold through confronting your situation openly and consciously. Bottoming out is just one way to trigger such a confrontation, but my change was triggered not by a flame-out so much as a general malaise with where my life was going and a cognitive confrontation of my need to change to get what I wanted.

Reading Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change”: Chapter 4 – Life-Changing Stories

August 13 2018

I read Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change” last year, and was blogging about it, but I got distracted with my “50 things before 50” theme, and kind of forgot about getting back to the book. I wouldn’t say Chapter 4 was particularly compelling for me, or at least most of it wasn’t. It was about how people attempting to change can create narratives to help or hinder themselves. It seems pretty obvious to me, so the various headings of different types of stories didn’t really resonate with me. I did like a couple of quotes, including stories that promote change (as opposed to other stages in the process):

Through the use of metaphors, they have the advantage of operating indirectly and bypassing resistance; they engage in active imagination and require listeners / viewers / readers to personalize the lessons in a meaningful way.

Some helpers (teachers, psychotherapists, health experts, leaders, etc.) often use stories to help instruct or heal:

Contemporary therapists often make frequent use of recommending particular books or films to their clients, even basing their treatments on what has been called bibliotherapy or cinematherapy. One practitioner has compiled a collection of movies that inspire people to overcome their problems, organizing them according to the issues they highlight…

There are some people who read through several self-help books or biographies and nothing resonates. Then they read THE ONE that does resonate with them, and they feel almost like they can model their behaviour after the person’s success. Books help for me, but movies not so much. I do however believe there is a great untapped role for music, but perhaps that is more short-term mood management than inspired change. However, those with specific issues have merged upbeat playlists to help them deal with depression over their love life or their weight or challenges staying motivated to work out. I guess it is similar in many ways to those who listen to sad songs after a break-up to help them process the experience and move them through it towards a healthier mental view of the end of a relationship.

Rarely, however, does a book inspire me so much as an idea or two within a book. I do like the power of stories, just not sure they are as strong when not self-created, so ideas often spark me to take them away, wrestle with them, unpack them, and decide if they work for me or not. But that process is more creative for me than a passive reading of other people’s stories.

Reading “Big Box Reuse” by Julia Christensen – Chapter 10

March 10 2018

Chapter 10 is interesting in that it goes in an entirely different direction — not the use of a Walmart by another big retailer, or a completely different business, or a community group even. Instead, it focuses on the reuse in Kentucky to open a mini-mall of second-hand stores. Micro-businesses, in the parlance, or in this case, flea markets.

But with an innovative twist — a central check-out. All the vendors sell their wares just as Walmart has little divisions. Yet they are no competition for Walmart, so Walmart loves them. How many individual vendors? One store had over 300. The central checkout handles all the finances for them, along with most of the transactional paperwork. I think it is brilliant. Ripe for disruption, of course, but brilliant.

And the store renovation is as minimal as they can make it…splash some paint and they are good to go. Nobody cares, they just want an indoor space to sell their goods. The lower the overhead, the better. Even some of the original signage is still in place.

In the long run, however, the mini-malls are doomed to fail…once the main lease runs out, and the lease restrictions ease, larger retailers can come in, take the space, and increase the revenue for the site owner, just as it did with the race track in an earlier chapter. Yet, in the meantime, it’s a very different way to take over the space.

Reading “Big Box Reuse” by Julia Christensen – Chapter 9

March 10 2018

Chapter 9 is a somewhat starker chapter, as it looks at Chalmette, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area. And it isn’t like the other chapters, as it is not really about reuse of an abandoned building.

Instead, it is the use of the Walmart parking lot — the only local place large enough to hold a small medical centre made up of a series of large double-wide trailers all connected together. Supported by non-profits, for-profits, religious groups, FEMA and Walmart, it got going in the aftermath of Katrina, and at the time of writing (3 years afterwards), it was still running, while the Walmart remained closed. Walmart even let them open a small pharmacy onsite to meet local needs.

However, what I find interesting and for which I wish there was more coverage in the book (admittedly, it is beyond her scope), is the description of how Walmart used its existing large distribution network to help relief efforts. Not unlike nationalization of some industries back in WWI and WWII, from the descriptions.

Yet in the end, the main reason for their use of the parking lot? Location, location, location — it has good transport networks leading to it, everyone can get to it, and it’s easy to find. The same reasons any user would choose the same location.

Reading “Big Box Reuse” by Julia Christensen – Chapter 8

March 10 2018

Chapter 8 struck me as the oddest of all — converting a Walmart into a chapel in Pinellas Park, Florida. Now, admittedly, it’s a Calvary Chapel plus a whole bunch of other things, not your traditional wayside chapel of Catholicism, for example. Yet, when you realize that the parishioners are not “local neighbourhood” residents, but cross the county, it isn’t surprising that they would choose a building with built-in parking and a virtually unlimited size meeting space (i.e. auditorium). How big a congregation? Services for 700-1000 at a time are for slow days, normal hits at about 1500, and potentially 3300 are part of the congregation.

When Walmart was looking to vacate their space, the Calvary Chapel was already in a smaller old Winn-Dixie store. They bid on the new space, and Walmart agreed. The part I find a bit confusing in the story is that the author seems a bit puzzled about Walmart’s decision, even though there were potentially higher bidders. The Chapel credits divine intervention; the authors wonders if it was PR, or that the Chapel had a good business reputation for reuse, etc. Yet the author already spoke of the most likely reasons way back in the earliest chapters — when Walmart vacates, they want to know that whoever takes over the space is not going to compete with them for business. And they often have huge lease and/or sale restrictions to prevent it. With the Chapel? No such concerns.

The renovation is extensive, of course. Even the roof has been modified to have a huge patio. Inside, they have sports areas (courts for basketball, dodgeball, etc.), recreation areas (pool tables on a second floor), some small theatres, lots of offices, some educational spaces for schooling, etc. And of course, a temporary auditorium for 1500.

I can’t help but feel there is some irony between products for the masses and a commercial approach to religion, but that is my own upbringing showing through I suppose. But the renovation of the exterior wasn’t a big concern for the church, they are all about the congregation and having a tool to help serve them, not the extensive aesthetics.