Making Change While Being Kind to Yourself
How Dialectical Behavioral Therapy approaches change, and how this approach can help us access our ability to grow without going to extremes
I’ll be honest: before I made it into the field of psychiatry, I was an extremely easy target for the self-help and self-improvement industry. While I never went beyond paying the price of a new book for the often guru-led industry, I was devoted. In hindsight, the desire to feel less anxiety, know you’re on the right path, and feel hopeful about the world is so natural to anyone’s early 20s. While there were some helpful insights from some of my time subsumed in the motivational genre, there was also quite a lot of wasted time and possibly painful reinforcements of something I would only later undo through being in the presence of kind, gentle, yet encouraging people.
The combination of now being in the field of mental health and my history with the self-help industry is that the study of habits is incredibly dear to me. If you have been following me for a while, you likely know this. Ideally, any content you’ve gotten from me about habit building or change has not added on to the pile of productivity hacks or transformation inspiration. When I write here or on TikTok—and, frankly, when I speak with my patients—what I hope to speak to is the balanced pair of the beauty of change and validation for where we are now.
On The Dialectic of Acceptance and Change
While I am not an expert in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) in any way, one of the most useful concepts I’ve learned in my reading and training is the core philosophy behind this therapeutic model. A dialectic is defined as holding a conversation between two perspectives, or holding the belief that opposites are not unrelated. In DBT, it is the idea of holding two true, even if conflicting, things at once.
One application is the concept of “wise mind” which is an entity that is the dialectic of combining one’s “rational” mind and one’s “emotional” mind. This might mean combining what our brains or planned out responsibilities need us to do, while allowing some mercy and slowing down for what our heart or emotional self needs in a certain day. This concept shows a view of the self that can hold both of these parts, rather than splitting them away or pitting them against one another.
Another application—and why I bring it up in this article on habits, at all—is the concept in the model of change and therapeutic action (aka how this therapy works) of DBT. Two things are true at once in how a DBT therapist approaches working with a client:
Often, one’s struggles are related to being conditioned in an environment that could not meet their needs, for whatever reason. Difficulties with emotion and emotion regulation can emerge from this, and validation, kindness, and belief in a client’s goodness is centered. This is the acceptance component of the self.
Something about how the client is going about life is not working for them, and that’s why they are in therapy to begin with. Change is needed in how they show up in their life and respond to have a different sort of life, or to create a “life worth living”, per the client’s definition of that. This is the component of responsibility for change.
Psychologically, holding a paradox is expensive and undertrained in our brains. Acting by a set scheme or by a highly-repeated pattern is what our minds default to. Additionally, in modern western culture with high speed internet access, we are being more and more trained in this way of approaching. This comes out in what kind of self-improvement books sell, what therapies get reimbursed by insurance, how medications are marketed, or why that “Glow Up By Summer!” TikTok went viral again.
Building Habits Like A Plant Grows A Leaf
Yes, we are back to my favorite metaphor, but I want to expand on why I use it, and why I think it is so helpful for building a habit versus the models we are given on change implicitly and explicitly online.
Transformation models of change have a view of making a decision one time, and then hoping that we will perfectly abide by that choice forever. Natural growth as a model would know that growing happens through attunement and nurturing daily.
In my early 20s, I fell into this trap CONSTANTLY. In some ways, this was my own internalized problem, but it is also the way many of these catchy self-help books or programs indicate how change happens. You’ve probably been here before: you are highly inspired or highly annoyed at yourself for some habit or inaction. You decide today is the day to change, so you can be just like that transformation video you just saw. You have a grand old time making a list of new habits to track this month, and how you are going to suddenly have the will power and attention to make 10 changes to become unrecognizable.
Never mind you tried this 3 months ago, and it made you feel burnt out and destined for failure 2 weeks in. Never mind that you don’t actually like bullet journaling. Never mind that there is a connection of this need for change to your recent breakup or bad work review, and looking at that emotion feels like trying to slurp down a cup of boiling water. This change plan will fix it all.
Every day, I look at my plants while I wait for my drop coffee to finish brewing. It’s just a minute or two, and it’s born of the fact that I’m not awake enough to think or do anything else, and now it’s like a familiar friend. I notice a droopy leaf, that the dirt is still moist, that some part of the plant seems to be reaching towards the window while the other languishes. I make a small adjustment. I go on and drink my coffee and forget about it until tomorrow. I’m pleased the next day to see it looks slightly more perky.
This is how our own change happens. Like the plant, we require attention, but only in small doses if we are willing to do it each day. Like the plant, our needs and responses aren’t entirely predictable, and it is more like a dance rather than a regime. We both are, after all, part of nature.
Ways to Think About Habits For the First of The Month
Brain dump a bunch of things you’d like to change. Then, go through and pick five that are the most annoying to you. Then, pick 1-3 that are the most important to you. Don’t pick what should be the most important to you or your mom or the internet. Pick the ones that would make you feel the most proud, the most like your inner self, or the most able to be less stressed day to do.
For the love of all that is good, do NOT pick more than 3. We are trying to get out of the do-too-much, stop entirely, think you will always fail at change cycle. There will be time in the future to try the other things, I promise you.
Find a way to remind yourself daily of these habits, easily. Do not depend on willpower or memory to guide you. I look at my plant because it is where I already am, and I have nothing better to do. This is not romantic, but it is what makes change possible. We are forgetful creatures, and honestly I think many attempts at change are lost simply because we forgot we were trying to change them. This is also why having 1-3 is ideal—it’s easier to remember them. You will not remember all 10 habits you’re trying to change.
Aim at a realistic growth rate. If you do not exercise at all every day, then asking yourself to suddenly workout for an hour every day would be like me looking at a tiny plant in a small planter and saying, “I can’t wait for when you’re a full grown tree in 2 weeks.” That would be ridiculous—and kindly and with empathy, my friend, that would be what you are asking yourself to do. We are building up not just your ability to change this habit, but also your belief in yourself that slow, sustainable, but eventually remarkable change is possible for you. What does natural growth look like for these habits, compared to where you are currently starting from?
Celebrate (or at least, notice) the efforts along the way. Often, people will work at change and believe they cannot affirm themselves until they get to the finish line. This makes for an extremely dull path of travel, and allows a minimal amount of celebration and joy. It also is likely in alignment with the self-critical, non-validating view of oneself that has been part of demanding extreme change of yourself. Being overtly nice or affirmative to yourself may be out of reach or feel very un-real—that’s fine, and I’ve been there too. What if we could just notice? Instead of, “Wow, what amazing work you did today!”, you can also be kinder to yourself by simply noting, “I am someone who showed up today, even though prior me wouldn’t have, and that is something good.”
I won’t leave you with next steps or a call to action. Sometimes what is most helpful is reading a piece like this, closing your laptop, and going and doing something else. An idea can be planted, and as we go through our day, not looking at it, the seed can begin to sprout.
Thanks for your attention, and I hope you remember you can always take your time.
xoxo,
Margaret of Bad Art Every Day