The Change Process
The anxious Christian who does not express their new identity in Christ is like a caterpillar who transformed into a butterfly but decides to still crawl around on his belly instead of trying out his new wings (Groeschel, C., 2013 p 68).
Change is not possible in you until you realize there's a better way to accomplish something. When you accept (are convinced; when you believe), the acceptance of that truth wont have a lasting impact until do what's necessary to implement it. That's because change, a simple frequently used word, is often, just that; a word without legs. A true fact can't help you if all you do is learn it. You must be willing to implement it into your routine too. Change is multidimensional; it's interconnected. It's both a noun and a verb. It can impact not just your physiology, but your sociology. When the awareness of a truth breaks through your defense mechanism and into your self-concept, you have a choice to make. Do you deny the fact and so do nothing different or do you accept the fact as true and incorporate it into your reality?
Your reality will not change until an intentional decision is made to break into your old opinion and incorporate the truth so you change your output. If you change what you think or believe, you can change your words and deeds. Aside from the obvious training your body will need to perform new skills, you need to rev up your soul with the benefits that will spark your motivation o you can pull through the skill acquisition phase (the transition process between unlearning the old skill and replacing it with the new skill). Take the process of learning to drive a car as an example. For a new driver, the process can be unnerving. It takes both the cognitive mind (written test) and different parts of your body (road test) to gain the skills to be qualified to drive, but you need a hopeful attitude to pull you through your temporary fears and doubts until you become a skilled, confident driver. (Read the “Introduction” Tab for an example.)
Change is, first, a decision. A person has the ability to change but that doesn't mean they will. The temporary discomfort of learning new skills affects emotions and is often evident in attitude, too. Both soul alignment (making decisions consistent with the truth and the values that are in your soul) and physical skill building are necessary to engage and persist through the change process. Emotions impact your performance drive/ambition and can help or hinder your persistence through the change process.
Alasdair White, a British management theorist, details five stages of changing or replacing old habit for a new one; the first two steps are reflected in attitude and the last three in behavior, as depicted below (2008). A person can get stuck and/or give up in any one of these stages. It’s in these last two stages where you solidify your new habits. Relating it back to your recovery, attending and graduating from an addiction recovery center has helped you through the first three phases. The last two phases of White's change cycle, establishing your habits in a new environment and incorporating the behaviors into your normal routine, are needed to make change stick so you experience your vision of creating your new normal.
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Take a closer look at Appendix 1B to see the connection between fine tuning your new normal by helping someone else learn to take a new sidewalk.
Another way to look at the phases of change are presented by psychologists James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente. They apply the stages to change directly to the subject of addiction recovery. Their analysis helps to explain why even the bad habits that you’ve determine to quit do not transform into new, more effective habits right away. In fact, during your recovery, relapses to alcoholism (or any ism) tend to resurface periodically until the new habit has been mastered and is incorporated into your new normal (Marlatt, G. A., & Donovan, D. M. (Eds.), (2005)). While undergoing this transformation process, there is a period of struggle (labeled the "push-pull" struggle) that takes place between the old habit and the new. Emotions are a key variable in this tug of war. In fact, so key that if not managed properly it will lead to the defeat of change in your life). Simply put, fear pushes you back while love pulls you up so you build your new reality (1 Corinthians 13:13). While Christians have the power of the Holy Spirit working in them to make this possible, you need to be willing to go through the struggles until you get your victory.
The word “relapse” in the recovery change process means you did manage to change your behavior for a while. Don't lose sight of this fact. Relapse can happen at any stage of recovery on the way to reaching “maintenance”. You might relapse again and again in the change process, but you will eventually get to the maintenance stage, if you persist.
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See Appendix 1N for more on the push-pull reality associated with the change process.
Self-control is a word you hear associated with the successful recovery from addiction. But it can be misleading if you don't take a bigger view of the word to see that it's is a willful decision to restrict your own freedom. It is a skill needed in people with free will so they can choose and exclude those things they determine may help or harm may fail you as you are trying to break free from an all-consuming bad habit. The word self-control implies that you alone hold the power to change which, when breaking physical strongholds that are tied to your soul, is deceptive. A stronghold means that you habitually perform behavioral patterns that are based on faulty beliefs, and for a Christian, these unproductive habits prevent them from living a life of freedom in God's truth.
What you believe about Christianity will determine your success in recovery. Any person who surrenders their limited humanity to the control of the Triune Christian God (freely chosen "higher authority") has been given access to the Holy Spirit. Believing that the Holy Spirit is an unfailing power source to pull you through the transition of learning to implement Christianity, will pull you up to your new reality; Christian Cognitive Consistency. The Holy Spirit is a gift from God that equips you with the faith and strength to implement the Word (Galatians 5:22-23, 1, 13, 17). Using* the Christian faith is something different. It's applying your knowledge. It means to use self-control to wait patiently and with expectancy while acting out behaviors that show your belief. (*By your actions you reveal your trust in God's Word-all of it, Psalm 5:3, Hebrews 11:1, 2 Peter 1:5-7, Appendix 1G). Jesus uses the parable of the sower, and the Apostle Paul uses the soldier, athlete and farmer to show that in order to achieve the expected goal, the Biblical seedtime and harvest principle must run its course (Genesis 8:22, Mark 4:3-8, Luke 8:11-15, 2 Timothy 2:1-6).
You will see Biblical scriptures ring true in your life when you use a Christian perspective to look at problems and make decisions on how to act. For example, 1 Peter 1:16 says this, ...“You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (Hebrews 12:14, 1 Peter 1:14-16). Learning to practice Holy habits is how Christ can free you from the grips of addiction in spirit, soul, and body (Proverbs 3:13, Romans 5:3-5, Ephesians 6:5, 1 Thessalonians 5:19-23, 1 Peter 1:22-23). The ability to delay instant gratification is a discipline that must be mastered by all Christians who want to change their A, B, C’s! Break, don’t deny, bad habits! Be intentional and decide today to form new habits in your A-attitude "(emotions and thinking) and in your B-behavior (your actions and speech). The C-consequences of this trusting, intimate
relationship with God results in your being approved and used by God, D(A + B) = C as recorded in 2 Timothy 2:20-26.
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In the Capture the Vision tab, see the section called, "Are you using God’s grace to change?" and take the time to review the sermon and subsequent worksheets.
When you turn to the Bible to provide the standards, and, through your prayers and faith, you decide to practice these standards and stick with them until the behavior of Christian character integrity becomes ingrained in your daily routine (2 Timothy 1:6-7, Hebrews 4:12, 6:10-12, Colossians 1:10-11, Ephesians 4:2, Ecclesiastes 7:8, Isaiah 40:31), you'll change. Researchers Galla, B. M., & Duckworth, A. L. (2015) add this, “Beneficial habits, perhaps more so than individual acts of effortful inhibition, therefore represent an important though often neglected factor linking self-control to positive life outcomes.” Hope, faith and honor for God is a learned art. It is a series of steps that progress with time as you learn to implement what you know about Christ. Godly obedience leads to the progressive implementation of holy habits that leads to Christlike behavior (Romans 6:13-14, 8:29, 1 Timothy 4:7-8, 2 Timothy 3:16, Titus 2:12, 1 Peter 1:13).
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Read more about understanding change in Appendix 1O.
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Read more on sustaining change in Appendix 1P.
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Read "Take Hold of Biblical Hope" and other articles in the "Still Anxious" tab to help your motivation to persist through the changes needed to create your new normal.
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