Finding the Courage to Change: A Conversation on Self-Belief

"I'm going to be honest with you? I'm tired of this relationship. Shaul is always caught up in his business, and I don’t interest him at all. He’s just taking advantage of my kindness, of how much I’m willing to sacrifice, and I, like a fool, just stay. I think it's best I stop being scared and break free from this package," Danit said angrily.

"How would you feel if Shaul wasn’t around?" I asked.

"Just thinking about it makes me breathe easier. I can finally take a breath. I won't carry this burden anymore," she replied.

"First of all, I’m glad you’re addressing all the places where you feel pain, anger, or fear. These emotions are a critically important control system that needs to be honored.

"What do you think about being brave, bringing forth all the pain, and explaining to him that you can’t continue like this?" I inquired.

"Do you think I haven’t tried? What haven’t I done? I don’t believe he cares at all," Danit said.

"From my meeting with Shaul, I saw how much he does for you. He invests, he comes to therapy...".

"He does it just to please me, not because he cares about me or the relationship. I can’t believe he can change," Danit said through her tears.

"Do you believe that you can change?" I asked her.

There were several minutes of silence.

"If you change and position yourself differently within the relationship, it will lead to significant change for Shaul as well."

"To be honest? I don’t believe I can change," she replied, crying.

"Let’s explain for a moment how the soul works and what needs to happen to create real change. The soul acts like a very professional businesswoman. What does a businesswoman look for?" I asked.

"To make as much profit as possible," Danit replied.

"Exactly. The soul seeks where it can gain the most, and that’s where it gravitates," I explained.

"But I don’t want my life like this; it doesn’t make me happy. I feel the situation is only getting worse, and my life is breaking down more and more."

"You understand this very clearly in your mind, that this situation isn’t good for you, and of course, you also feel the pain it creates. When you say you don’t believe you can change, it’s because your soul wants to keep the situation as it is, or maybe even worsen it..." I replied.

"But why would I want to keep the situation? To worsen it? Do you think so? I just told you that this situation isn’t good for me," Danit said.

"Let’s take a moment to look at emotional experiences and how much space they take up. When you feel sad, angry, or afraid, how long can you dwell in those feelings?" I asked.

"Sometimes it’s for a short time, and other times it can be for days. Honestly, I can sometimes get caught up in whirlwinds of emotions and thoughts that bring me back to those feelings again and again," she replied.

"The essential emotions of pain, fear, etc.—we have very easy access to them, and that's also the root of the problem."

"What problem?" she asked.

"The easy access to these emotions allows us to maintain and even inflate them, not for real purposes. They take up a massive amount of space in the soul.

"In contrast, try to think about how much time you can remain joyful continuously? How many times does that happen, and how much space does it take?" I asked.

"It’s very brief, it happens relatively infrequently, and often it feels to me like it’s not real at all," she replied.

"Exactly. The weight of good feelings is much lighter, airy, and dissipates very quickly. The soul seeks fulfillment, and it doesn't have enough substance to fill it from the positive side. When you don’t believe in yourself that you can change, you actually don’t believe that your soul will agree to let go of negative feelings, because there it gains much more. Then you start to develop various perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, and even values that ultimately justify the maintenance of the soul in all those negative feelings.

"This even causes you to create situations where you unconsciously become a victim, just to feed the soul with those negative emotions."

"So what do we do? How can we change this?" she asked.

"This mechanism causes you to feel, on one hand, and on the other hand—disconnects you from yourself. We will learn to identify this mechanism and nurture a positive alternative mechanism that creates a deep connection to yourself.

"In the positive mechanism, we will grant great meaning, volume, and weight to the soul in those positive feelings. The act of identifying the negative mechanism will start to create a separation between you and the mechanism. Once this barrier is created, space will be freed for the positive mechanism to occupy and begin to replace that survival mechanism you want so much to get rid of, while on the other hand, you feel you cannot."

"I must share with you that I don’t believe I will succeed; it seems to me that it won’t work for me."

"I agree with what you’re feeling, and it’s very natural to feel resistance to this process and even to develop disbelief and perceptions that it's impossible or not for you..."

"Why?" she asked.

"First of all, because you are so identified with that mechanism, and you feel that this mechanism is you. Changing it feels like chopping off a part of yourself, and that is very threatening.

"Secondly, the meaning of separating from this mechanism is to give up all the enormous and imagined gains it provides you, and that is also very frightening.

"Thirdly, if this mechanism is gone, what will replace it? The emptiness that might be created is so existential and survival-oriented that you can't imagine yourself without something to fill it.

"The work we will do is to return to that point of true desire. We will learn to develop together a strong resilience against those places. We will listen carefully to the survival calls of that soul, which acts like a businesswoman who continues to be drawn to those imagined gains, and we will begin to enlighten her with real profits that will lead to significant changes in your life."

Hanna Dayan[email protected]

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