Yes, OK, deep personal change is needed,… but I cannot live without xyz?
Why is personal change so hard to accept, start and follow through? Did you ever wonder? How many times have you started something and you have given up? Well, in the following blog series I want to tell you my story…how I understood that deep change was necessary, how I internalized and accepted that fact, how I started, how the process evolved, and how I did combine the mental training I use to teach as a coach in my case. I hope you enjoy it.
„You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.“ – Jim Rohn
June 10th is going to become my second birthday. This year on that day, I had to visit the vein doctor to rule out a potential thrombosis in my right leg. It wasn’t a nice view by the way!
The status of affairs – the dark side:
I had erysipelas on my right leg. Although I had been 9 months on interval fasting I had only managed to lose 8 kg and was at 156 kg. I did some sports on a very irregular basis, worked a lot, and sat all day and part of the night. I was on a total of 7 medicines, one of them being Ibuprofen in doses of 800 mg TWICE a day. My whole body ached. I also have diabetes type 2 and needed 1 pill and 2 different insulin injections. I needed 2 pills for high blood pressure and 1 for my thyroid problems. For almost 7 years I went through an allergy desensitization process every month due to all the allergies that I had. Many fruits triggered an allergic reaction in my throat and mouth. In other words, I was a wreck. Ah yes, and I almost forgot, I had already an insulin resistance problem as well. Nevertheless, I enjoyed life, I had fun, and … in a way, I was OK with myself. But truth was…my body wasn’t.
The process needed for deep personal change:
Out of my professional experience as a consultant and coach, as a manager, as well as out of my personal experience, I know by heart the internal process that you need to undergo to master deep personal change. Before I go into it, let me explain what I mean by deep personal change. Deep for me is everything that is life-changing and requires from you a completely new perspective, where behavioral change is required. I won’t go into the discussion that many people around the world lead, saying that „behavior cannot change“, just because of the following 4 things: I have seen it in others, I have supported others to achieve it, I have lived it myself and from the individual (Adlerian) psychology point of view, every person can change behavior as long as the person can self-reflect, see new perspectives and decide to change. So, in my eyes, the following is the process a person needs to undergo to achieve deep change:
- Deep understanding
- Deep internalization (knowledge)
- Acceptance (bow your head, ask yourself for forgiveness and recognize the change is dearly required)
- Deep conviction (mental training for your personal change marathon MACARENA)
- Lose the angst and START asap
- Educate yourself continuously
- Adapt along the way
- MACARENA your mental training – your best friend for difficult times
This time in Deep Personal Change – Part 1 – The dark side – we will look into the first 2 process steps, which I think are crucial for any deep personal change.
Deep Understanding
I am thankful I found a fantastic doctor who took the time to ask me questions and guide me through the process of deeply understanding the issues around myself and my body. I happened to land in Doctor Abel’s practice, and while trying to rule out the potential thrombosis with the ultrasound in my completely messed up leg, he started to ask open questions. What a fantastic coach! Well, some of the questions at the beginning were about my sport and eating habits. Very broad questions like: how does your normal diet look like in a week? What do you eat for breakfast? And for Lunch? How much cold cut do you eat with bread rolls? And how much cheese?
I answered honestly to all these questions (by the way I had extremely reduced the cold cut already months ago) and during that process, it started to tick in my head. Yeah, my actual diet was based on carb-fat-heavy meals. And I mean HEAVY. 3 times a day…hmmm
But I still was in a way OK with myself!
Doctor Abel did not end his questions there. He lifted them a notch, which I found at that moment a bit funny. The next questions were:
Dr.: Why do you drink milk? Me: for the calcium.
Dr.: Are you 100% sure, that you need all that amount of calcium every day? Me: hmm
Dr.: For what purpose does the cow produce milk? Me: well…actually for their calves.
Dr.: Have you ever seen an animal drink milk from another species? Me: Cats…but now that I think about we have accustomed them to do that, isn’t it?
Dr.: OK, then…have you ever seen any animal go to the udder of another species to drink milk? Me: hmm
And then we jumped to cheese and all the rest of the dairy. But I am not going to go into the details of that conversation here. The only question from the doctor I want though to share here today is: Did you know that cheese is the most processed product? You might think: impossible! Well, I invite you to start the analysis of the process of cheese production with the happy cow on the pasture (or, alternatively the not-so-happy cow in the stall eating immense amounts of soy) and end the process with the beautiful smelly camembert on your breakfast table.
The important thing here was the change of perspective and the prelude to the explanation he gave me of the chemical processes that happen in my body when I consume dairy and meat products. I won’t go into the details of it, there are fantastic books and documentaries out there, that explain the process better than I can do here.
However, my takeaway was: I deeply understood, that the way of my dairy and meat consumption was causing a ripple effect in my body that would end sooner than later with me trying to watch the sky from 6-feet-under!!! My body was not able to regenerate itself. Both the huge amount of protein and fat were damaging it and causing a constant state of inflammation. My blood tests showed a huge inflammatory value I had. There is something called over-proteinization in a simple term, or if you like it more scientifically „hyper-poropathies“ or „proteothesaurismoses.“ This refers to the „overfilling of connective tissue and vascular wall stores“ that leads to nutrition-related vascular diseases (arteriosclerosis with myocardial infarction and stroke), but also to numerous other chronic diseases. All coagulation factors in the blood, i.e. those components that make the blood fluid and supple or solid and bulky, without exception involve proteins. This over-proteinization, as I call it, together with the huge amount of fat I ate was causing damage to my body. My body was in acidosis and an inflammatory state and was not able to cope with anything. Therefore erysipelas and phlebitis the doctor was then able to diagnose…thank God and the universe it was not a thrombosis.
So, basically, on that day I arrived with the help of Doctor Abel to deep understanding. He took the time, asked open questions to let me gain new perspectives, and then explained the logic behind the scene.
Deep Internalization
„Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.“ – Albert Einstein
Deep internalization is there when the message has finally arrived 100%, you take steps to understand the bottom of it and gain knowledge about the matter. This happens, when you educate yourself. Yes, a deep dive is required. Immerse yourself in the issue, read articles, and books, and watch documentaries. If you like and have access approach experts and absorb their knowledge.
In my case, after Dr. Abel explained all the processes in my body, and after he told me that I needed to change to a plant-based diet because it would be the only thing that would help my body regenerate, he recommended me a book called „Arthrose, der Weg zur Selbstheilung“, sorry folks, no English translation available.
The book was written already in 2005 by Eckhard Fisseler, who was a patient. At the age of 49, he got Arthritis diagnosed, including the sentence „it is incurable“. Well, Eckhard who seemed to be a problem-solver started a quest to deeply understand the reasons for arthritis and discovered lots of medical studies confirming that arthritis – similar to many other chronic diseases – was caused by bad alimentary habits. He also discovered, that as long as you do not have degenerated joints, by changing your diet to plant-based you would be able to recover from it. So he started writing short articles and notes and created an arthritis self-help group. Together with his fellows, he created a very simple diet and proposes to do it for 2 years. Since then many people have recovered not only from arthritis but also from other chronic diseases.
Through that book, I came to another one by Dr. Barnard called „The cheese trap“. This one goes even deeper into the matter of cheese and is based on the average American diet. I gained even more insights. I then watched 1 documentary at that time, parallel to reading the books. I expanded my wisdom on what was happening with myself. I took it seriously.
Now let me just repeat: „I was in a bad shape“. This path I took is not necessarily the same one for everyone. Important in this series of blogs is the process to arrive at deep personal change.
By the way, while researching and educating yourself, try not to succumb to too much analysis. Do not fail into the trap of „paralysis through analysis“! You need to start looking in this phase at what are going to be the next steps you will execute.
Next time in this series, we will go into ACCEPTANCE, DEEP CONVICTION, and START ASAP and I will tell you what happened to me when I started…
Erich is an experienced life + business coach. He has a track record of over 19 years in supporting staff and leadership in organizations, athletes, and private people in their efforts to enable changes in their lives.
He knows from his own experience how to ignite the passion in people, how to let people gain new perspectives, set new objectives, and follow through completion.
As a native speaker, Erich provides coaching in German and Spanish, as well as in English thanks to his more than 3 decades of experience working at the international level.
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