Still, you CAN succeed in incorporating healthy changes in your life. Learning something new requires elaboration, repetition, and integration. You can learn to apply new tools and behaviors that will promote your mental health, but it will require persistence, perseverance, and a willingness to put in the time to master this skill. Elaboration Elaboration means expanding upon and developing a thought, idea, or concept. Writing and sharing your struggle to integrate new skills will help you fully understand and apply the tools you are learning.
Integration Be aware that integration is a process that continues over time.
The more you make the practice of applying new skills and tools in your life, the greater will be your ability to integrate it and call upon these tools effortlessly. I know a man who struggles to overcome tremendous contempt and self-involvement. He has learned in his therapy work that one of the major tools he lacks in his daily living is awareness of gratitude. He has learned to see his obliviousness toward gratitude as both a spiritual problem and as a deficit in his repertoire of skills to promote his emotional well being. In order to combat these deficits, he types out a Gratitude List three times a day, every day.