[2 min read—client resource]
When you come to counseling, what do you expect the outcome to be? Perhaps you expect a big change in circumstances or a dramatic healing.
It can be helpful to consider our expectations for growth in counseling and in our personal growth as a believer. We often desire and have come to expect quick fixes and easy solutions. There is nothing wrong with desiring and even seeking relief in our suffering. But in the process, are we trying to bypass the work of entering the pain and bringing it before the Lord?
It might surprise you to learn that tiny daily habits can play just as much of a role in your growth as a major “realization” in the counseling room. In our attempt at a quick fix, we can often neglect to see the importance and value of these daily habits. We are embodied souls, and part of that means that we need to consider how our habits impact not only our bodies, but our minds as well. Holistic care in counseling will not simply aim to change our thoughts and behaviors but seek to engage the whole person.
An example of this could be considering how hours spent on social media may be contributing to our anxiety or depression. Or it might be tempting to skip past deep breathing exercises thinking they seem too simplistic without realizing the awareness and stability to our bodies that they can bring. Simple spiritual disciplines can help ground us in grace. And our habits of how we rest, work, eat, and sleep can affect areas of our lives beyond what we realize.
In the book You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith describes how habits form our hearts and that “we need to (regularly) calibrate our hearts, tuning them to be directed to the Creator, our magnetic north. It is crucial for us to recognize that our ultimate loves, longings, desires, and cravings are learned. And because love is a habit, our hearts are calibrated through imitating exemplars and being immersed in practices that, over time, index our hearts to a certain end. We learn to love, then, not primarily by acquiring information about what we should love but rather through practices that form the habits of how we love” (p.21).
Considering our habits is not to elicit guilt motivation. Most of us could eat better, rest more, or take steps to being healthier. And when we feel stuck or depressed, motivation for any small change can seem monumental. But it can still be important to consider how our habits are forming our hearts, because often it leads us to places that we don’t wish to go or keeps us stuck in places we don’t wish to be. It is important to be intentional in our habits in our growth in grace and healing. As you consider your habits, instead of thinking “I should be doing x, y, z more”, ask yourself “what is God inviting me into” and consider what baby steps you can take. Don’t be afraid to ask or cry out for help in your weaknesses in this area. And remember the promise Paul writes to believers that you can be “sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).