Some people learn early what their challenges are– reading comprehension, vision problems, genetic conditions, ADHD, or similar. Others do not discover what hurdles lay before them until they are much older. Unfortunately still others never discover the source of their dis-ease at all, or if they do they resist acknowledging it. But, the day that we “own” our challenges is the day that we are half way towards conquering them.
Speaking from personal experience it took me more than 45 years to really understand what my challenges were. The constellation of chronic illness and depression and anxiety and hypervigilance and PTSD and OCD and insomnia and allergies and sleep apnea (and more!) was just a haze of icebergs in a frigid sea on a moonless night that I drifted through decade after decade. A few of these dangerous hunks of ice were discovered once my vessel had already begun to take on water, in my teens and early adulthood. Others were later found to be lurking in the shadows of previously discovered threats as I entered my 30s and then my 40s. Only in the past year or two have I been able to survey the entire sea and figure out how and what floats in those waters. Once I figured out the root cause, the original ice mass that berthed all the others, I knew deep inside my bones that I was going to be better. I knew that it was just a matter of time, of execution, of working with a professional counselor to map and take counter measures against all the floating dangers. The relief and confidence and optimism that this charting work provided became the fuel to power the recovery work. I still go backwards some days, I am still sick more than the average person I figure, but I have hope and confidence that I am getting better and that my happiest days lie ahead of me.
Even having figured out roughly what some of my challenges were it took a few years to get to the point of having the strength and confidence to actually tackle them. The EMDR work (eye movement, de-sensitization and reprocessing) actually makes me sicker at times (https://www.emdria.org/). The processing work involves moving stuck and outdated beliefs and coping mechanisms and neural networks out of my body tissue and grey matter and replacing them with healthier versions that will serve me better today. The process involves actual pain and illness, but it also leads to real joy and relief and calm.
“Change [only] occurs when the pain of doing the same thing is worse than the fear of change” according to the rock band Walking Papers. I fully agree that this is a useful protection reflex, but one that can be improved upon. We can always wait until whatever is causing us discomfort gets so great as to FORCE change, or we can make it a habit to asses our lives and pro-actively look to areas for improvement. At some point the process of identification and purposeful change becomes second nature, and more importantly something that generates peace rather than consuming it. We can all get there. We can all fall back into old habits. We can all get there again. It is a path to walk not a destination. 🙂
