Journal Submission: How to Change Oneself
New to personal development
How To Change Oneself:
Why Rational Control Fails and Emotional Understanding Works
Abstract
At first glance, personal change appears straightforward: identify an unwanted behavior, decide to act differently, and implement the new behavior. In reality, it doesn’t pan out quite as easily. This paper explores why habit change cannot be reliably done with rationality alone and proposes a Relateful, emotionally aware approach as a healthier and more effective path.
Drawing on neuroscience case studies, past-based psychologies (e.g., NLP, IFS), and Eugene Gendlin’s work on Focusing with the “felt sense,” I argue that decision-making and action-taking emerge primarily from emotional and relational processes rather than purely rational cognition. Attempts to override behavior through shame, self-judgment, or forced discipline may work temporarily, but often produce internal fragmentation and long-term resistance.
I propose that habits persist because they are solutions from legitimate needs (e.g., safety, regulation, belonging). Sustainable change occurs when these needs are heard, validated, and redirected rather than judged or suppressed. Being internally self-Relateful–defined here as an attuned, self-compassionate, creative, self-parental relationship with one’s internal system–serves as the connective tissue enabling this process.
The paper concludes with a practical, repeatable framework for habit change rooted in internal dialogue, emotional awareness, and creative renegotiation of motivations. This approach reframes emotional resistance not as failure, but as wisdom waiting to be listened to.
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Author Information
Author: Shane Orton
Background: Relatefulness facilitator; experience in personal development, therapeutic models (RLT, NLP, NARM), and meditation practices (Mindfulness, Vipassana, Metta, Heart Coherence Technique, Focusing by Eugene Gendlin)
Affiliation: Relateful
Contact: shaneorton12@gmail.com
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Introduction: The Myth of Rational Control
At first glance, changing oneself seems simple. If I can see the behavior I want to adopt, I should be able to decide to adopt it. However, implementing this new behavior is consistently more tricky than first thought. Even moreso, removing old habits proves close to impossible sometimes.
This gap between knowing and doing reveals a common societal belief: that rational intention governs behavior. A rationalist might assume complete dominion over thought and action–believing that rationality works as a great commander dominating all other elements of the psyche. Despite evidence suggesting otherwise.
In Antonio Damasio’s book Descartes’ Error, Antonio explores what happens when his patient, Elliot, loses his emotions after a tumor is removed from his brain. Elliot remains highly capable at solving equations, outperforming most, yet is unable to make even simple decisions like where to eat. Decision-making and action, it turns out, are not rational.
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Shame as a Motivational Tool (and Its Limits)
If rational control fails, how do we change at all?
One common way is to force change through negative self talk. When the pain and frustration builds enough, a person can generate enough emotional force to override resistance and propel themselves forward. Usually, this is learned through parents as they try to force change in their children without knowing how to otherwise guide them to be mature adults.
While this approach has proven results, it comes at a cost. Shame-based motivation doesn’t remove emotional resistance, it creates counterparts that argue against it–this forms internal fracturing that brings psychological turmoil. From a Relateful perspective, this is a coercive relationship with oneself–not a sustainable one.
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Parts, Motivation, and Internal Relationality
Parts-based frameworks such as NLP and IFS propose that behaviors arise from internal “parts,” each oriented toward meeting specific needs. No part acts randomly or maliciously; each behavior serves a purpose, even when its consequences are undesirable.
Let’s say you have a fear of highway driving, but you need to take a long commute to work. It could easily be seen that this part is wrong and that the highway is nothing to be afraid of, but if we were to listen to the wisdom of this part, then we’d find that it is trying to keep us safe.
Through caring for its motivation, negotiation of the resulting behavior becomes possible. Telling yourself you’ll drive slow or avoid aggressive drivers might be enough to satisfy the part, allowing it to stop resisting getting on the highway. This is self-acceptance–assuming that what feelings arise are here for a reason.
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Focusing by Eugene Gendlin–Therapeutic Change Based on Feeling
Eugene Gendlin’s work tracks what clients are doing when they’re able to quickly make big changes in their therapy. He breaks it down by saying that clients that rely on rationalization fail to make changes in their lives while clients that feel into their problems can tap into a “felt sense” that gives them wisdom and allows for big changes at the root of their issues.
In his book Focusing, Eugene details how problems show on shallower levels than can be solved–that we must go deeper into their root causes to be able to have the possibility of real change. For example, at the shallowest level, it may seem that the problem is an angry boss peering over our shoulder, but using the “felt sense” to feel deeper into the issue, we might find that we’ve carried a belief since we were young that we’re doing wrong and need to hide being caught. Yes, this doesn’t make our boss stop peering over our shoulder, but it can change our reaction from a terrified freeze to a light annoyance.
This finding contradicts a cultural bias that equates emotional engagement with irrationality. Being “emotional” is often framed as being ruled by feelings. Relatefulness points to having these emotions on our side–working with us instead of against us.
People who change effectively are not governed by emotion; they are in dialogue with it.
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A Relateful Framework for Habit Change
A step-by-step approach for changing habits Relatefully:
Identify the behavior you want to change.
Tell yourself, “I’m going to make this change.” (And mean it.)
See what emotional resistance appears.
Feel these emotions without judgment.
Assume their intention is one of wisdom, even if their resulting behaviors aren’t.
Ask what they are trying to do for you and listen.
Use creativity and problem-solving to redirect their motivations to healthier patterns.
Organize your change by creating reminders or structures to instill the change.
Repeat this process as new resistances emerge along the way.
Some feelings may point to trauma–feelings too large to be felt all at once. In these cases, therapy may be the best approach. Many unhealthy habits can be the results of how we had to adapt as a child to survive our circumstances. The hope of this step-by-step is to access the process of change, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy.
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Conclusion: Resistance as Wisdom
Habits do not change through rationalization. They change because their origins are understood.
Relatefulness reframes resistance as wisdom–an attempt to care for something vulnerable. When we build trust with ourselves, we form a team of internal processes that work seamlessly towards healthy change. Relatefulness is not a technique, but a meta-practice of relational attunement linking emotion, cognition, behavior, and meaning-making.
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Originality Statement
This work is original, has not been published elsewhere, and represents the author’s own thinking and experience.
Conflicts of Interest.
None.
Permissions
Any illustrative examples are hypothetical.
Resources
Focusing by Eugene Gendlin
Descartes’ Error by Antonio Damasio
Frogs into Prices: Neuro-Linguistic Programming by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Dr. Richard Schwartz