Indirect Change
"It’s easier to say no to something when you have something better to say yes to."
Pastor William Beasley

For the past several years, I've used telephone and online dating services to meet women. While I haven't made a love connection yet, I've made some wonderful friends; and probably some enemies too.  And I've also met a lot of lonely, hurting people; people starving for intimacy and desperate for attention.

Let’s consider the experience of one such person; we’ll call her Amy.  Amy suffered from bipolar disorder and was collecting disability.  She had a lot of time on her hands, and much of that time she spent cruising telephone chat lines. Every month or so, she would call me, excited about the new man she was talking to.  "He's the one," she would say, and the giddiness in her voice was practically contagious.

But alas, these were short-lived romances at best.  Each guy talked a good line, said all the right things, and her poor needy little heart ate it up, hook, line, and sinker.  And inevitably, she would agree to meet him, not in a public setting, but in her bedroom.  After he got what he wanted, he would leave and she would never hear from him again.  And so, she crashed and burned, again and again, each time calling me in tears, begging for a way out of this sad cycle.

For years, social workers and case managers had told Amy that her mental illness disqualified her from working.  The great irony is that she is very smart. When I spoke to her, I felt like I was talking to a Ph.D.  She was incredibly well read, her grammar was impeccable, and her vocabulary was immense.  I could easily see her as a college professor.  She also had a great love for children, and served faithfully in her church's nursery.  Unfortunately, Amy had been fed so many lies from an early age that she couldn’t see herself truthfully or accurately.  She was on medication for her bipolar disorder, and had spent years in therapy, so she was already managing her disability. But her belief that she was unemployable kept her locked in a self-imposed prison.  Rather than seeking meaningful work and furthering her education, she spent her time desperately searching for a man to rescue her.

In the past, I had given her several tips or pointers she could follow to help her avoid catching the wrong man.  But at some point, I took a different approach.  I suggested that she quit dating for a while, and spend a season just concentrating on herself, pursuing various hobbies and interests.  I encouraged her to list her goals, hopes, and dreams, both personal and professional.  Slowly but surely, she built her confidence back.  She started volunteering at a local county mental health center, and today she is back in school, pursuing a degree in elementary education.

When clients seek help, they come in with a particular set of issues that they think are important.  This is known as "the presenting problem."  But in many cases, the presenting problem is not the real issue; but only a surface layer concealing a deeper truth.  In Amy's case, her presenting problem was that she was falling for sleazy men, but the real issue was that she needed to get a life.  Today, Amy is a happy, healthy, 30-year-old woman with a bright future ahead of her.  She still wants to get married, but she's no longer obsessed with finding her soul-mate.  Instead, she's filling her time with positive activities. She's begun dating again, but this time, she's seeking an equal, not a savior.

The kind of change we're discussing here is what I would call indirect change.  Rather than tackling a problem directly, we put the problem aside and pursue a course that will take care of the problem in the long term, while we put it on the back burner for the moment.  Instead of trying to fight it with willpower, we can submit it to a larger life process.  Life has a way of taking care of things so we don't have to carry the burden all by ourselves; at least the burden becomes a lot smaller.

Changing our thinking involves much the same process.  We are not in control of every thought that comes into our heads. Thoughts, like feelings, are not like switches we can turn on and off by a mere act of the will.   They are more like waves in the ocean, some passing us, some gently brushing us, and some smacking us right upside the head.  We can't control all our thoughts, but we can control what we put in our minds. 

Coaching Philosophy

Part 1: What is Coaching?

Part 2: What Coaches Do?

Part 3: The Reality of Human Frailty

Part 4: Listening to The Barbarian

Part 5: The Limits of Willpower

Part 6: Indirect Change

Part 7: To Give or Not to Give Advice, That is the Question

Part 8: Transparency and Authenticity

Part 9: Don't Go Changin', to Try and Please Me

Part 10: Self-acceptance, Not Self-improvement

Post Script

If I wish to reduce my anxiety level, I can begin by minimizing the amount of stressful media I consume.  Instead, I can read gems from the world's religions, listen to soothing music, or just take in some chicken soup for the soul.  Fighting negative thoughts directly with willpower is a bit like fighting fire with fire.  A little water might do the trick.

Let’s turn our attention now to a controversial subject.  The topic is masturbation, and I know several Christian men who struggle with it. Some of them have come to me and confessed feelings of guilt and shame; they want to stop, but it's just so hard; (pardon the pun.)  Let's set aside for a moment the question of whether masturbation is wrong; the point is these guys want to stop, or at least minimize their habit.  Again, they have two choices; they can either try to fight their inclinations with sheer force, or they can ask themselves some honest questions. When do I masturbate?  Am I getting enough emotional nourishment in my life?  Am I getting enough touch?  How much time do I spend alone?  Am I lonely?

All I can do is speak for myself and say that I tend to masturbate more often when I'm in long periods of isolation.  But when I'm around a lot of positive, edifying people who lift my spirits, I do so much less frequently.  For example, if I'm attending a weeklong spiritual retreat, I rarely even think about sex; let alone masturbate.  Personally, I think masturbation is a healthy option as long as I do not do it compulsively, but the larger point here is still the same.  If I want to say no to something, I need something better to say yes to.

Let me close with something my Christian readers should find especially pertinent.  You can use this principle of indirect change and apply it to your walk with God.  The Apostle Paul gives us a blueprint for how to do this.  Paul begins his second letter to the Corinthians with these words of encouragement. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”  2 Corinthians: 3-4, NIV.

How does a baby learn to love?  Babies don't try to love; they learn to love by receiving love from their parents.  If a child is blessed with good parents, Mom and Dad will hold the child, talk to them, make cooing sounds, and in doing so, they bond with the baby.  In most cases, the baby will respond by smiling, laughing, reaching out their arms to be held, etc.  Do you see the way this works?   We learn to love by receiving love; it's not something we achieve by willpower. In the Scripture I cited above, Paul is applying the same paradigm to our walk with God.  We take in love, or comfort, from God.  As we are comforted, we become filled up with God's love and that love spills over onto other people.  And we don't have to work at it; it's a natural response to the love we get from God.  We get so filled up we can't keep it in anymore.  This is what Jesus meant by an abundant life.

Next, we'll turn to the specific details of the coaching process, and the dynamics of the coach/client relationship.

Continue to Part 7: To Give or Not to Give Advice, That is the Question