IF you asked a room full of people, if they would like change some area of their life, I'm willing to bet the majority, if not all, would say "yes", adamantly!
If you were to ask the same group of people, how many of them were willing TO change in order to impact the area of their life that they would like to be different, I'm willing to bet the number of people who say "yes" would be much smaller, and much more tentative.
We spend a lot of time and energy wishing things could be different, without realizing or acknowledging that we are the impetus for the difference we would like to see.
It sounds daunting, and scary and like a hell of a lot of work.
And it is.
It is also empowering, liberating and life-affirming!
It's not our fault that we don't realize how powerful we are. It's by design. People who think they are powerless are much easier to manipulate and control. They also spend a lot more money buying things, services and dreams that they are told will give provide them with the life they want (with minimal effort and maximum money).
Once we fully grasp that all change begins with us, we can choose what to do with that knowledge. We have every right to dismiss it, however the victim mentality becomes a little harder to embrace.
Change can come from the smallest shift in perception and attitude at the most basic level, to changes in mindset, job, location, lifestyle, and so much more!
The funny thing I've discovered is once you make the initial mindset change of realizing just how much power you have over yourself, your life, your reactions, your health, and so on...the other changes start to happen organically.
I resisted changing for the majority of my life. I firmly believed that things happened TO me, and that I had no control over either the circumstances OR my reaction. I was a perfect victim. Life happened to me. I was at the mercy of fate.
Part of this grim and negative outlook had to do with a genetic condition/disorder that I was diagnosed with in my early 30s. It caused my anxiety and stress hormones to be out of control. I was always scared and felt hopeless. I did all I thought I could do including years of therapy and anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications.
I was told those were the two things that I had control over. I believed and obeyed and things didn't get much better.
A few years later I was diagnosed with another condition, this time it was an autoimmune disease, my body was attacking itself. It affected every aspect of my physical, mental and emotional health. I was told nothing could be done, it was a progressive condition, and I could take a pill to supplement the hormones my body could not produce anymore.
This was it. It was my life sentence. Specialist after specialist basically told me that, this was the hand I was dealt and that, in a nutshell I would have to learn to live with physical pain, brain fog, debilitating fatigue, and out of control anxiety for the rest of my life.
This time being a victim was not acceptable.
And so began my journey of change.
I started reading and educating myself. One of the first things I learned which was a hard pill to swallow, was that my autoimmune disease didn't just HAPPEN to me. Sure, the genetic predisposition I had, was not in my control, but the manifestation and exacerbation of the disease came from many poor choices made over many years. While my other genetic medical condition didn't really have a prescribed treatment plan or cure, there were things that I could have been doing to mitigate the symptoms and curtail future problems.
I had a lifetime of careless, from choices eating a crappy diet, staying in unfulfilling relationships, living in mold filled apartments, having an erratic sleep schedule, partying too much, staying in toxic work environments, and most of all taking no personal responsibility for my life or my health.
On one hand blaming everything and everyone seems like the easy way out. On the other hand, I was making life exponentially harder than it needed to be.
My personal change started with a small change in mentality which has spawned many changes over the years. Changing my attitude, led me to change the type of doctors I saw, the food I ate, the way I perceived stressful situations, the way I managed anxiety my personal boundaries, my lifestyle and career choices and ultimately what I want my life to feel like.
This seems like a lot, and a bit overwhelming, I share this not as a blueprint of what needs to be done, but as an example of what CAN be done.
If there is one takeaway from my story it is that you always have a choice. You can't necessarily control what life hands you, but you can choose how you react and how you move forward. Those little choices influence what comes next and can eventually lead to huge differences in your life.
You are more powerful than you know!