Change is difficult because we tend to obsess over what looks attractive, worthwhile, useful, desirable or effective in the short term, while we neglect doing the right thing in the long term. The process of change should take into account the long term aspects of the change we want (quitting smoking — decreased overall stress, decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, increased overall physical health) while acknowledging the benefits of short term gains (less smell in clothes/house, being able to breathe more easily, more money in bank). We use a different part of our brain for planning out our retirement than we do for deciding which breakfast cereal we plan on eating for the day. This has profound implications on changing our habits. Short term thinking focuses on getting or witnessing immediate results. Long term thinking develops from robust habits that help us achieve those results. Say I want to change my career path. Do I set a long term goal that indicates how I pivot or develop into my new career according to a timeline? Do I give myself a date? Do I decide “tomorrow I’m going to stop what I’m doing” and then quit my career, without any long term decision-making activity?

Interesting people have plans. A path to self-healing should always go with one. You want to change your old habits, but you also want to adopt new actions, behaviour and skills—forming new habits. This takes organizations skills and planning. Associate planning with pen and paper. The idea is to have a practical, historical goal that will provide you with an idea of how to achieve progress. Not having a plan means forfeiting an opportunity to make lasting change. “Doing things in your head” does not equal PLANNING. Write it down. Chart it out, so that you come back to it later and gain perspective on it.

What we desire to change, whether it’s a bad habit, negative self talk or unhealthy behaviour, involves perspective. Mirriam-Webster defines perspective as the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance. In other words, the reality of what we believe as central, important or valuable in our lives is often secondary to our capacity to view things–how and why we believe things to be a certain way. A lens is analogous to our entire belief system, gained from everything we experience. Often, we get transfixed on our problems. We dwell or ruminate on certain thoughts, feelings and emotions. We get stuck in life as we replay situations in our minds as if they were as real as the experience itself. The blurriness of life connects to the strength of the prescription of our spectacles. This connects to our self talk, the healthy-unhealthy scripting that we develop as a result of our perspectives. Changing a habit requires knowledge that we can can change our lens.

In the arena of life, major life decisions, business directions, even entire government policies get centred on what we believe others think about us, and how we want others to see ourselves. The result of people-pleasing—basing our actions and decisions upon the feelings, emotions, opinions, judgments and approval of others—is a reactive philosophy towards life. A good example of people-pleasing is using a basic idea of honesty, "telling the truth," in order to serve our own narrow-minded interests. We wind up treating honesty as if it were nothing more than an unending supply of Facebook content. At the extreme, too much honesty isn’t necessarily a good thing. In a tell-all mindset, we ultimately hand over our lives, gauge our responses, make our decisions and actions according to what we believe others want to hear or find out. In doing so, we ultimately hand over to others what agency we ultimately have over our decisions. Like perfectionism, people pleasing takes the “truth” we have in mind and presents it in a 2D, surface way, so that we are constantly guarding our failures, errors, mistakes, limitations and screw ups. Rather than “telling the truth,” focus more on BEING TRUTH—following through with your commitments, standing behind your promises, and keeping your word.

Practice meditation. Eat well. Exercise. Go back to nature. Find a still place within. CHANGE IS GONNA COME—GO WITH THE FLOW. Using art to heal mental health issues is a good indicator of having a guiding philosophy, something that tells you that you are progressing in making changes in life that you want to make. Mental health should always be associated with having a guiding philosophy. Creativity is a good example. Creativity points to flow, a mindset that people immerse themselves in when they are engaged in a task. In artistic situations, we are able to freely do what we are doing, without distraction or self-judgement. Art is way of getting into flow, which is important because as we become more engaged in setting up an oil painting, doing a gesture drawing, making a collage, creating an affirmation card or making a sculpture, we understand how we create change in our lives. Flow is state of mind which helps us give up the negative thoughts, feelings and actions we typically associate with control/being controlling, getting stuck on ourselves, self-bullying, beating ourselves up, and self sabotage. Flow helps us evaluate our own thoughts, emotions and feelings as we experience them. Here, we can work on allow some breathing space for ourselves as a way to make change happen. 

Using art to help change our mental health is a good way to understand role playing. Roles are areas of influence of whom we perceive ourselves to be, given our situations, circumstances, experiences and various stages of life. We begin to act out roles from a very early age. Son, daughter, sibling, friend, cousin, student, are examples of general roles we gain life experience playing. As we get older, the list increases—parent, spouse, partner, manager, teacher, apprentice, lover, neighbour, owner, tenant, leader. Being self-aware is knowing what you’re playing, how you’re playing it, and why this affects your decisions given the circumstances you happen to be in. Living out of self-awareness means that instead of taking a reactive approach to our decisions, feeling like you’re being forced into roles that you don’t want to be forced into, you begin to see role-playing as areas of life where you have the influence to make the changes you want to make. Try ending a role that you play with -ESQUE. What’s spouse-esque about the ideas, feelings, thoughts, emotions that my situation is bringing up for me? How can I act on them in a way that is spouse-esque?