The Pace of Change in Our Lives

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When getting into a swimming pool there are many people who dive into the deep end, eliminating the anguish of a long process of adjustments, foregoing the small pains for the single shock of forced immersion. I’m the guy at the pool you always see slowly lowering himself down the ladder. I stop regularly to adjust to the temperature changes before exposing the next section of my body to momentary discomfort. For me, this process, while elongating the duration of the adjustment, seems to reduce the shock to my whole system.

Admittedly there is little meaningful difference between the two approaches, beyond that of individual preference, and either approach is reasonable. In such matters, we are best advised to choose our own preferred route and to support others in doing the same.

However, when recovering from a traumatic event, a heartbreaking loss, or when striving to make profound changes in long-standing patterns and habits, simply going with your preference may not be appropriate or effective. The potential for harm makes simply following a personal preference unwise. Rushing to get a painful process over with can result in additional distress; taking it slowly may exhaust our resources over time.

Trauma therapies utilize various forms of what Peter Levine (2010) called pendulation: the conscious strategy of alternating between exposure to traumatic memories and a return to a positive or neutral space. Levine’s approach establishes two anchors in the body; one area where the distress is felt and a separate area that is either unaffected by the traumatic memory and/or is associated with a safe or positive experience. Alternating awareness between these two areas during processing increases the client’s ability to endure the stress of exposure to the traumatic memory, in part, by providing a rest-stop, but also by activating a consciousness that the distress is not wholly encompassing, that there remain areas of their life and body that are not disabled by the trauma.

Other versions of this approach develop a vivid memory of a positive event (i.e. the embrace of a loved one) or a pleasant though neutral experience (i.e. eating breakfast that morning). For some clients the presence of the therapist in the room with them provides the needed counterpoint to the processing. Simply through direct eye contact, supportive comment (“You’re doing great”) or engaging in a brief check-in about how they are doing during the session, the therapist can help the client maintain a dual-consciousness of the traumatic memory or other difficult material and their present safety/well-being.

This dual-consciousness and the experience of movement in and out of the hard work demonstrates for the client their personal control over the change process. Trauma and deeply ingrained habits can be experienced as overriding the person’s capacity to choose. These pendulation techniques implicitly contradict a client’s experience of powerlessness by actively exerting deliberate manipulation of pace and direction.

Pendulation is a word that implies a rhythmic movement between two points. That rhythm is crucial to preventing our utilization of comforts from becoming an act of avoidance. Long ago, I learned that when I’m entering a pool by walking down the ladder I must continue to press forward at a steady pace or I will sometimes end up not getting into the water at all. It is easy to turn a gradual entrance into a tentativeness that invites a return to my lounge chair.

These clinical interventions are not strategies of delay for the purpose of determining whether it’s safe to proceed. These are strategies to reduce the client’s discomfort and increase their capacity to engage the hard work of processing trauma or making other challenging life changes.

Beyond therapy, the underlying concept—being gentle with oneself but not avoiding the discomforts of change—can be applied fruitfully to varied aspects of life. Many of us have learned to believe (through harsh childhood experiences) that treating ourselves with kindness and compassion encourages weakness and that harsh treatment brings out our best. The truth, however, is that harshness often evokes rigidity, fear, and anxiety that tends to foster avoidance. Kindness and compassion, on the other hand, tend to provide us with free access to strengths that are essential in addressing our challenges and enriching our capacity to accept and love others as we love and accept ourselves.