Tipping Point and Magic Questions

Malcolm Gladwell has written a book called Tipping Point and in that book he talks of the tipping point in each of our lives that helped us stop, turn around, look and the mirror and decide to change our path. On my intake form for clients I ask such a question, however I word it slightly differently in that I ask what the precipitating event was for a client to call me.  A tipping point can be as series of small events or life changes that build up enough for you to say I need to change something.  Often times when I ask clients if there is one specific incident that brought them to make a call they say not one thing but rather they talk about a buildup of feelings or unhappiness that got them to call.

Occasionally it is the behaviours of someone else that the person wants to focus on.  How do they change their partner, their friend or their co-workers?  The bad news is you can’t change other people.  It is a bit of a cliché to say that you can only change yourself, your perspective, your attitude or your responses.  No-one wants to hear that…I repeat no one wants to hear that from me and sometimes when I gently remind the person of this fact, because you know they already know it to be true, I am not greeted warmly. They feel helpless because they may be living in what most of us would see as an intolerable situation.  If that is true, change is unavoidable if they want to grow and become the best human being they can be. Change or growth sometimes means changing your understanding of the other person or situation, it can mean removing yourself but it never means giving up on yourself.

Sometimes I will ask people if they are proud of themselves after being with the person or situation they want to change and if the answer is no then they need to ask if this indeed is their tipping point?   Are you being your best self after you have been with the person or people whose behavior you want to change?  If not, then it might help to ask yourself my magic questions. What could I do differently?  Who believes me?  Who believes in me?

Those questions often open up your thinking which up until now may have been focused on other or on blaming yourself. The other day I heard another counselor say this: We can’t protect our clients from pain or suffering but we can teach them skills to cope and to grow. Sometimes the tipping point involves great emotional pain.  Spending our life avoiding those strong feelings means it will take longer to embrace our own tipping point.

So the tipping point is that point at which you know you must make change in self in order to facilitate your own health and growth as a human being.  Sometimes when I am lucky I get to witness and honour your growth.