The truth is: I really don’t know.

Change is possible. But, having the life you really want, that you find authentically fulfilling, is an option.

Yesterday I was at a friend’s house and we were talking about someone we know who seems to be stuck in a rut at the moment. We both said out loud at the same time, “Well, that’s the way they are. They will never change now.”

And, as I was nodding and agreeing with this mutual statement we had just made, I suddenly saw the craziness in what I was saying.

“Wait,” I said mid head-nodding. “I have built a whole business and just finished writing a book about how anyone can change at any time. Why am I agreeing with this?”

We both laughed at the ridiculousness of my hyprocrisy. But, I also had to admit that I did believe that this person probably wouldn’t change.

Not because they don’t deserve change, and not because having the life they really want isn’t a universal possibility for them. But simply because it didn’t seem like this person was going to make any effort to change. They had been acting from a place of limitation for as long as I knew them, and they didn’t seem to have any belief that life could be different.

It is that simple.

The more an issue is rutted in, the more we have traveled the same well-worn path of our habitual patterning, the harder it is to change. And, if we don’t believe change is possible, or we don’t make an effort toward changing the things in our life that make us unhappy, it is unlikely anything will become better for us.

That doesn’t mean it is impossible to make shifts to long-standing patterns and improve every aspect of our lives any time! It just means it will take focus, willingness, and persistence if we want to make in-roads on altering long-standing patterns in our temperament and habit patterns we need to put some effort in this direction.

We can do this!

There is no point in pretending it’s going to be easy.

But, we also know we are awesome and amazing at taking on difficult tasks—and we can just go for it!

I know there are things you want to change about yourself and in your life. Some of these feel impossible. “This is just the way I am,” we say to ourselves and our friends.

But is this true? I don’t think so. None of us are always one way—or we don’t have to be. You are always changing!

Every day you get older and experience new things in your inner and outer-environment. Change is happening constantly. The question is: can you direct this change? Can you participate fully in your life and choose what is being strengthened and what is being weakened?

I don’t know if you can do this. Maybe you can’t.

Maybe if your challenges have been going on forever, and you have made no attempts to change your own neurosis and dysfunctions, and you’ve been resistant to even admitting to your own darkness—you might not be able to change your addictions, obsessions, inner-meanness, and outer-rudeness. It might be too deep.

I don’t say this to be mean—I am just being honest. If we don’t make any attempt to change the parts of our lives we aren’t satisfied with—they simply won’t change.

If you do nothing…you will get nothing. 

Nothing changes the first time we try. Persistence is needed. Persistence is necessary. Persistence is self-love being manifested into reality.

Are you ever going to be able to change? Will you ever have the body, love-life, career, family you want? I really don’t know.

But, I know you won’t have them if you don’t try. And, I hope you try. Because what the planet needs for its healing is people working toward their own healing.

Yes, it is is hard—but you can do it. You just need to start.

~

Author: Ruth Lera
Image: Flickr
Editor: Lieselle Davidson
Copy Editor: Emily Bartran
Social Editor: Nicole Cameron