I have become the same as always: someone capable of dreaming, enjoying life in pieces, in sips and hugs. I left out the person I was until recently, a person who had forgotten about herself to prioritize others, a shadow of shattered dreams and bitter disappointments that she gradually knew how to heal, to find themselves.
We all, in a way, already live this kind of personal journey in which we realized that we had strayed too far from our emotional north, from our inner equator. Finally, in a surprising act of bravery and admirable personal struggle, we return. to re-enter our steps, on those footprints left in the sand of our emotional oceans to regain our self-esteem, our integrity.
- In this delicate psychological process to recover our own identity and values.
- We must be clear that we will almost never become completely immune.
- On this return journey.
- Many things change.
- So even if we look in the mirror proud to have left behind what hurts.
- Us.
- We won’t be the same as before.
- And maybe we won’t be the same as usual.
We’ll be an improved version. But it is a process that certainly takes time, because if we have strayed from this source of pain, no one takes the leap to happiness or the state of calm and well-being in two days, it takes time, willpower, personal care. confidence and trust.
We suggest you think about it
This fact is curious and you have to take into account, no longer being the person who suffers involves putting in place a series of measures that not everyone is willing to take, first, to be fully aware of their own discomfort, then the person must feel a real need to make a change and finally work on a very complicated aspect : the will.
At first glance all these steps may surprise us, because who will not want to go through this process to put aside suffering and feel better?Actually, even if it surprises us, there are those who don’t finish doing this. “jump, ” this act of faith to recognize that they can, should and deserve to feel better. In fact, Viktor Frankl explained it to us in his book” The Man Looking for Meaning?”that sometimes there are those who prefer to persist in a state of unhappiness before starting something that causes them much more fear: change.
For example, Anne Thorndike, a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, has shown that all heart disease patients are taking a step towards a healthier lifestyle to ensure their survival. In addition, we also know that many women resist Dejan’s partners, even if they are not happy, for two main reasons: fear and fear of change itself.
To be as always, someone who has trusted people, someone who sets goals on the horizon and has been delighted with life, you have to exercise a muscle that you always tend to neglect, it is a wonderful structure of our emotional and psychological architecture called ‘will be’.
In books like, the instinct of willpower?Kelly McGonigal’s (The Willpower Instinct) explains that after several decades of research into this dimension, it has been concluded that willpower is not something you have or don’t have, it’s actually like a muscle, as a resource that must be used and even “restored” continuously. Because sometimes, as with physical exercise, we are exhausted, ecstatic and to the limit of our forces.
Sometimes we forget that we still have the strength to say ‘enough’, that we have a voice, own resources and forces to let go, to complete a stage. We must not forget that the psychological cost of not changing these undesirable aspects of our lives is simply daunting.
Before concluding, we must be clear about another aspect. When we leave a complex stage, happiness is not guaranteed. It is not like closing one door and opening another where in the same second we will be greeted by a warm, enveloping and welcoming breeze. The human brain is programmed to withstand change, so we need time and, above all, do we need to feed it?with new experiences and thoughts to get used to another approach, another perception, to open up again to calm and well-being.
Read, walk, travel, change scenery, foster social contact, start new hobbies and develop new projects. Gradually you will realize that you will actually be the same person you were, but much stronger, wiser.
Images courtesy of Clare Elsaesser.