Member-only story
The Surprising Way to Change Others Without Saying a Word
Most of us spend a lot of time wishing others would change. We feel frustrated, powerless, and stuck when they don’t. But what if the real key to change lies not in them, but in us?
The way to change other people’s behavior is by changing the way we behave towards them.
Let’s be honest, what we all want is for other people to change. One of the greatest gifts of 12-step recovery is that we really, deeply internalize the message that we can’t change others. We forget all the time though, that’s what the Serenity Prayer is said at the beginning and end of many 12-step meetings — because we forget.
We need the help of a Higher Power to get the wisdom to know the difference between the things we can and cannot change because it’s so hard to keep this in mind. Then, once we get that wisdom, we might need the help of a Higher Power to accept the things we cannot change. Not accepting them is where the pain comes from. It’s not what other people are doing that causes us pain, it’s that we believe it shouldn’t be happening. That’s why acceptance is so important. To be clear, acceptance doesn’t mean that we like or want what happened. It means we stop fighting against it.
Here’s what acceptance can look like. I want my brother to talk more quietly and to stop talking about…
