change is good

I am currently at a point in my life where I need to change. Some change has already happened, some is in progress and is yet to come. I have been many things in my life. I have experienced much chaos and turmoil. I suppose some would call it change, and in the end I suppose it can be called that. But it was never an organized change. It was random.

From one city to the next, from one job to the next. Change was a constant in my life. But not in a good way. Because for all the changes of environment I remained the same person. I never changed the one thing that really needed to be altered. I never looked at myself as the source of the turmoil and chaos in my life. Now I have a much clearer idea of what I need to do. In order for change to actually work, to be permanent instead of fleeting certain things have to be realized.

Change requires both discomfort and awareness of that discomfort. I spent most of my life in discomfort, but I thought it normal. It never occurred to me that what I was feeling was any different that what every other person in the world felt. I didn't start to change until I finally became aware of my own issues. Not only aware of them but accepting of them.

Change requires curiosity. What would it be like to be healthy, to not be depressed constantly. What would life be like if I actually enjoyed it instead of suffering it? If you don't wonder what something else would be like then why would you bother to change? If you live as I did, in a fog with no idea that you live outside of that fog and, in fact, most people do, then you have no desire to change. It simply never occurs to you that it's possible.

Now I wonder what it will be like to be at a healthy weight. To be at a livable size. To be able to do all the things I want to be able to do. To aside all the things I currently think about when I leave the house.

Change requires that you care about yourself. This is something I have spent many many years struggling with. A product of depression, at least for me, is an almost constant state of self loathing. A lack of caring. I spent much to much time in my life thinking and feeling that I just didn't give a shit. I didn't care if I lived or died. Nothing mattered. I didn't think I was worth caring about so I didn't. You can't change anything if you don't care enough to take the first step.

Change requires practice. A lot of it. I struggle with this. I spent so much of my life building patterns of existence. Habits. Eating habits, living habits, surviving habits. From a very young age I developed coping mechanisms that kept me alive, that kept me from completely losing my mind. The problem is, I kept using those learned skills long after they where no longer needed. And I suffered for it. I have to practice every single day to keep from returning to my old ways. It's often like being a drug addict or recovering alcoholic. I find those old habits and old ways so comfortable. It's like sliding on a favorite pair of jeans, they just fit. Or at least that is how it feels at first.

So that leads us to patience and persistence. I have days when I slip back into my old coat. I don't beat myself up about it. I have been patient and I still am. I feel this way about losing weight. It took me a very long time to get to the size I'm at. It's going to take an equal amount of time to go the other direction. But I will be persistent. I will not give up and I will change.

There are even some rules of change;

• Change is simple but certainly not easy. The concept of change is something that seems quite simple. You stop what you are doing and do something else. You stop the habit and no longer do it. Simple. But certainly not easy.
• Change is incremental. It generally isn't successful or sustainable if it all happens at once. It takes time.
• Change is slow. Slow and steady. One foot in front of the other.
• Change is facilitated by having or developing specific personality traits. Ambition creates change. Desire creates change. Will power creates change. 
• If you put one foot in front of the other and take a step you can't help but get where you are going. 

I have many things I am working on changing. The way I look at food. The way I look at exercise. The way I look at the future. The way I perceive my self. What I want from life and most importantly what I think, what I believe, what I know is possible.