Here’s why you don’t change…

Because we know you want to, otherwise you would be here, right?

There you are, struggling every day, feeling stuck and continually wrestling with whatever has got you in its grip.

Maybe you want to drop weight and get healthier.

Maybe you are desperate to stop gambling and putting yours and your family’s future in jeporady.

Maybe it drinking or drugs or porn or spending money you don’t have on stuff you don’t need or even really want.

Maybe its anxiety, depression, and dark thoughts that consume you and make you miserable.

There’s so many ways we struggle and here’s the thing I really, really want you to get.

The odds are stacked against you. You have systems and industries and governments policy makers and society and almost everyone else all determined that YOU WILL FAIL.

That sounds a bit over dramatic doesn’t it?

But you are at the centre of your own epic fight for justice and right and truth. All the forces of evil are ranged against you.

You are a hobbit starting out on a journey into Mordor to dispose of a magical evil ring.

You are an orphan wizard who doesn’t understand the magical world he has suddenly been dropped into.

You are a girl and her little dog following a yellow brick road facing an evil witch and a duplicitous wizard.

You are a simple farmer who is about to take on an evil Empire.

Get it, yet?

You are the hero who is required to step forward in the face of (perceived) great personal danger and go up against everything the world has to throw at you, staying true to your destiny, your calling, your inner wisdom and finding the courage to keep moving forward.

Every single one of us, from a young age was taught that they were somehow wrong to be who they were. A part of you was too much. Too loud, too noisy, too sensitive. Don’t do this, don’t ask me that. Stop it! No. NO! NO! NO!

And to survive,the child we were stops being whatever it was their caregivers didn’t like. We stamp down on our natural inclination to ask questions, to dance, to shout, to take up space and be seen.

And as we grow up, we see more and more evidence that hiding that part of us is the right thing to do and we suppress and deny ourselves and keep on smiling, keep on pretending to be okay being only part of ourselves.

And then the modern world tells us to eat this, and we get addicted to it. Because it was designed that way and the more we eat, the more money the companies make.

And so we get sick because of all the crap we’re eating and so we’re told, take this pill and take it for the rest our lives. And we get sicker and these companies make more money.

And that part of us we suppressed and denied is withering away inside of us and that pain has us turn to different ways to distract us, to numb us from paying attention to what’s happening inside. So we drink too much, we take drugs, we watch awful simulations of intimacy that trash our natural desires and the pain grows and so we use more.

And all those companies that supply the sh!t that feeds our addictions, our distractions – they get richer and richer and we keep getting sicker.

Now do you see why you are the hero standing alone against forces of overwhelming might and control?

When you start to see that, you must act. You must step up and start your own hero’s journey. Gather together your support team, the wise old man with a cloack and a stick, the irreverant wisecracking warrior, the wise beyond their years magic user, the friends who support you no matter what. Haven’t you ever noticed that every story has the same characters more or less?

Avengers Assemble.

And then you must take that first step to change, to be the you that you are longing to be. To face down a food industry that cares nothing about nutrition and only about profit. A pharmaceutical industry that’s most pressing concern is always profit. A porn industry that makes huge amounts of money from exploitation and abuse, hi-jacking natural desires, twisting them into something ugly and obscene.

There are the more immediate naysayers; friends and family and even more intimate than that, the enemy that has inflitrated your team, the betrayer within, your own conditioned thoughts and behaviours.

This is an epic battle you are facing – even when it seems like you only want to lose weight.

You face all of this.

Change is never as simple as just deciding you want to change. But it starts there. It starts with just that. A decision.

And its starts within.

With becoming aware of how your own thoughts and behaviours, noticing how the systems you use for living your life betray your conscious desires. How you more than anyone else, even the evil empires built on profit and greed hamper you.

How do you make that change and make it stick?

By everyday, reminding yourself of who you really are. Of what you really want. Putting in front and centre of your mind daily: the life you want to live. The person you want to be.

And every day BE that person. Live that life. As much as you can right now.

And be aware. Be aware of the sabateurs. Those thoughts that have been with you so long you think they are who you are.

They’re not.

They are implants from the world outside of you.

Practice noticing them. Those times when you’ve already done that thing you hated and had vowed to stop. Don’t condemn yourself. Remember the vast array of forces you are pitting yourself against. Be compassionate and vow to catch yourself sooner next time.

And go inside and start walking through the places you have hidden those parts of you other people deemed as not appropriate, not right, too opinionated, too whatever. Open the doors to their cells and embrace them.

I was thinking this morning about something that I hadn’t thought about in years. It was when Nelson Mandela was released from Robben Island after being incarcerated for 27 years. And as the world waited for him to walk free, I was sat there in the living room of my home in Derry, tears tripping me. And as he appeared and walked so calmly, so straight and tall and dignified I sobbed my heart out. My Mum came in and asked me why, ‘You don’t know him, it means nothing to you, that’s half way across the world.You’re being silly and over dramatic’

She didn’t understand my connection, she never understood my senstivity and empathic nature. It was one of the parts of me I had been judged for and had hidden away, cut off from myself as a child. And yet in this moment, I couldn’t suppress it, I couldn’t deny my true nature and the tears flooded out of me.

And as I thought about that again today, I started crying again. And I welcomed the tears, I celebrated them. I knew there was no shame in crying, in feeling the world’s pain and in celebrating the joy of people around the world.

We all have parts of ourselves we deny and of course, sometimes that’s necessary, the road rage idiot who screams and swears – That can still be me sometimes and I have to turn it into a game. How many rules of the road can I spot this arsehole breaking and give him a score out of a million. But that’s not suppressing your truth, that’s being in control of your anger. A very different thing.

I’m talking about rescuing the parts of you that are YOU. Not emotions and feelings that come up but core parts of your identity that you have suppressed.  And that includes the you that wants to have a normal, healthy sexual realtionship. The you that wants to be fit and healthy and eat food that nourishes you. The spiritual part of you that can feel the energy of a room and other people. The part of you that is love.

Because when you are fully yourself, you won’t need distractions and your addictions will fall away. Your thoughts won’t be full of anxiety and darkness. Instead you will find balance and understand that pain and sorrow exist and embrace those feelings the same way you embrace happiness and joy. Part of the spectrum of feeling and not a place to get stuck in.

And maybe the enormous profits from the companies that prey on ordinary people wil tumble and something new and glorious and in service to the world and not to shareholder greed will rise in their place.

Maybe.

Anyho, start your quest, gather your team, acknowledge the difficulties and stay focused on your goal. Because if you keep going forward, you will reach it, claim it, live it, BE it.

Love,

Cynthia xx