By Stacey Colino, Illustration: Joanna Grochocka, The Washington Post, January 10, 2021
After losing 30 pounds a few years ago, Rosanna Gill wanted to lose 10 more, but a few factors kept her from making the effort it would require. After all, she didn’t need to drop additional weight for health reasons. Plus, she was already sticking with a healthy, balanced diet and was happy enough with how she looked.
As a result, Gill felt ambivalent about changing her eating and drinking habits. It wasn’t until she realized that her ambivalence was giving her an excuse “not to do something” that Gill, 35, a confidence coach and podcaster in Watertown, Mass., vowed to take action. “I decided that feeling meh about myself was reason enough to make some changes.”
Ambivalence, which essentially means having conflicting feelings about something, makes many people uncomfortable. But it is a normal part of change, experts say. “With every change, people have some ambivalence, because change means moving out of something you’re comfortable or familiar with and into something that’s not familiar. It disrupts the person’s life a bit,” said Carlo DiClemente, professor emeritus in psychology at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and author of “Addiction and Change.”
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