Depression
To Speed Up Your Personal Growth, Try Slowing Down
Improve your life with frame-by-frame observation.
Posted December 23, 2019 Reviewed by Lybi Ma
If you feel stuck in repeating symptoms of anxiety, depression, anger, or other emotional issues, there is good news: You have identified a pattern that you want to change. This might not seem like much, but it is the first step toward change. Next, you must pay more attention and get to know the repeating experience. One of the best ways to do that is to slow it down.
By mentally replaying difficult situations more slowly—kind of like watching a movie frame-by-frame—you will have the opportunity to see things you did not notice before. You can see how and when problems began arising. You can watch them unfold. This is true both with problematic patterns in yourself and in your relationships.
Consider each part of a situation with curiosity. Take time to separately focus on yourself, the other people, and the situation. With regard to yourself: What are you feeling? Thinking? Doing? And how do these relate to each other? With regard to the other person or people: What do they seem to be feeling and thinking? What are they doing? And how are their experiences affecting you? Finally, what aspects of the situation are directly and indirectly affecting you? And in what ways?
When you are thinking about other people, it’s important to have a healthy respect for the fact that you are not a mind reader. You may think that you know what’s going on inside the other person, but that does not mean you are right. So, depending on the circumstance, you might want to check it out with them.
As you move through this process, you will hopefully open up to new insights that enable you to change. But be patient. Change generally requires you to not only identify problems and how you might make a change, but also for this knowledge to “sink in” or as some people might say, you must also “feel it in your bones.”
Consider this example:
Henry did not like that he was unhappy night after night. When he reflected on this, he realized the problem. After Henry was home from work for maybe only 10 minutes (barely having a chance to take a breath), his wife Pam would come in with their toddler son, Ethan, who she picked up on the way home from her job. She would hand Ethan over to him while she took a shower to “wash off” the tensions of her day. Then she would make dinner for them, leaving him to have to entertain Ethan.
She did not seem to even notice how he was doing or care whether he needed time to destress from his own day. So, aggravated and feeling taken for granted, Henry would secretly seethe and respond to Pam with sarcasm. Once he was aware of his own thoughts and feelings, his beliefs about Pam and just how tired he was at the end of his workday, he decided to talk with Pam about it. Though it took several conversations to talk through each of their struggles with balancing their home life with work stress, they agreed to each entertain Ethan while the other took a shower. They also prepared some dinners on weekends, giving them more time to relax during weeknights.
As with Henry, when you s-l-o-w down enough to look more closely at your struggles frame-by-frame, you will likely notice patterns before, during, and/or after particular events. This can enable you to make changes. Then you can enjoy life at “full speed” again, until there is another problem that you need to look at more closely.
If you would like to learn more about this topic, check out this brief video:
(If the video is not appearing here, you can see it on Youtube: Use Slow-Mo Replay to Help Change Bad Habits)
Making Change blog posts are for general educational purposes only. They may or may not be relevant for your particular situation, and they should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional assistance.
Making change through compassionate self-awareness.
