My experiences so far...

About Making Change Happen

I read through the words of these articles and plug in the addresses for the underlined link words... I'm thinking about each and every single one of you that have stopped to find something.

You desperately want change to happen in your life - you understand that you need change to happen in your life - but you just can't make it happen. I've been there - I am there - I understand what you're going through.

Change is hard. I can explain that there are points in every article that I've posted that are of the utmost importance for you to understand. For me, I've had to read over each article until I thoroughly understand every word written. I look within the author and ask him out loud while I'm reading ... what do you want me to understand the most from this work? It's not as easy as writing the article - causing change to happen in your life - but when I think of writing myself - wanting someone to understand what I'm saying - like right this very minute - I know that it's not that simple to write the article.

I think the easiest way to write the article is to number the steps just like the above article.

Now tear each step apart in your mind. What one step do you think is the easiest? Why is it easier than the others to you? Which one is the hardest? and why?

It's not like I haven't made any changes. I have to remember that I have made many changes. They were hard at the beginning too. I must keep trying. I won't give up. I must believe in myself enough to keep trying.

Changes I have made:

I have become aware of what is happening in my environment.

I am mindful of what is occurring "in the present moment."

I no longer need to rehash my past life, I've accepted it and experienced my buried emotions and feelings and let them go.

I now understand why the horrible things that happened to me in my past happened and I can accept the answers I discovered.

I believe that I am working at a higher level of understanding that in the beginning of my journey.

I know when my meds aren't working.

I am beginning to identify emotions and feelings that I've never been able to recognize before.

I still need to learn about building healthy relationships. Every relationship I've every had is unhealthy.

I look at this first step in the article and I think about what it means to me. What does it mean to you?

1. Identify the price of maintaining the status quo. Not making the change you know you need to make is costing you. Do some soul searching; consult with trusted allies, or journal to yourself to uncover the payoffs you're receiving and the prices you’re paying for maintaining the status quo. When you get that the price of not making the change is greater than the payoff, you'll be more committed to moving forward.

Seriously, I start laughing because all I can hear in my own head is that damn Dr. Phil sarcastically spitting out that phrase he likes, "So how's that workin' for you?"

The changes that I have to personally make revolve around becoming committed to myself. I don't have a problem being committed to all of you out there in the Internet world - I have kept my commitment to you all in keeping up with these websites. It was was the first commitment I made for my personal growth recovery journey.

So being committed to myself is difficult for me. Loving myself is difficult - so difficult I think it's almost impossible for me to do. If you haven't studied about commitment I suggest you click on the word and go study up about it. Take the extra learning step seriously and search up the word commitment and see what you can come up with on your own. I've done this already so I know that I totally understand what it means to be committed.

My problems is that I am so disorganized I can stay with the program for short time period and then I get distracted and then I go back to my old ways. Each time I attempt to make a change, I learn something else that's missing from the puzzle of why I have such a hard time making changes, but it doesn't make change any easier.

Change is not easy. It's easier not to change - maybe that's my payoff. I am not experiencing the pain of growing by trying to do the difficult things. I am not being honest with myself about being committed to change. I know it's going to be hard.

I don't have a support system - I think I need to find one.

Are you able to soul search and be honest with yourself?

2. Create a reserve of everything. We don’t always have to make a difficult change from where we are now. If we have issues with money, time, space, emotional support, skills, etc., make a plan now to get more than you need in these areas, creating a stronger foundation from which to launch in your new direction.

Keep in mind that it's better to be over prepared and arrive at your destination than to fail because you were just a hair short of having what you needed to get there.

Personally, I'm not afraid to fail - I expect that I'll fail several times before I'm successful. Is that self defeatest thinking or realistic thinking?

thank you for visiting more layers down under