One of the most difficult things to do is change. Change your life, change your situation, change your outlook, change your mood, change whatever it is that you need or want to. I've found that people will only change if they want to, not because someone else tells them to. But in order for that essential change to occur, they have to first find the motivation and power within themselves.
Embracing change is something almost all humans seem to hate. We like things the way they are, the way they've been, and we don't like to see them altered. One of the most difficult realizations is often that change is necessary. Change creates motion, change creates life.
Everyone experiences change in some form or other. Moving to a new location, starting a new year at school, losing a loved one...you name it. Change can be painful, and it's rarely ever easy.
In my experience, one of the hardest things to change is myself. I know that I need to make some changes, I need to pick myself up out of the rut I've found myself in, need to start over, need to think more positively, and rejuvenate my love for life. I can say these things to myself over and over again in my head, but I can never seem to commit them to concrete changes. Here and there, I'll notice a little bit of change, like thinking uplifting thoughts, or finding myself nearly hysteric with my apfor life.
I've lived with mental illness for as long as I can remember. Struggling with depression on a daily basis is no small thing. I've thought of ending it, I've thought of giving up, but I know I have to power through. So I do. I focus on school, and succeed in my classes, I focus on my family and find growing connections, I focus on my significant other to cling onto love and acceptance, and I focus on work in hopes of finding new opportunities. But none of this will bring me through it--only I can do that.
Only I can change what is going on internally. Only I have the power. Sometimes it feels different than that, like I'm a puppet and my strings are my emotions, tugged one way or the other, constantly in a battle to control them but feeling helpless. Sometimes I feel totally out of control, like I have no say in my life, or how I feel.
None of these hopeless feelings are new to me. I often find myself turning self-destructive, eating away at my brightness from the inside out until I imagine myself as a husk, a corn-doll. But one of the most important things to realize is that you have the power over yourself, and your life. Only you can create change, and live a more positive life. This is the path I follow now, and though it is far from easy, I feel empowered just to know I am on it.
No matter what kind of change you're facing, be brave. Stand up against it rather than backing down in the face of challenge. Know you are not alone, everyone has suffered through change at some point and know it's not easy. You have the power to create the life you want to live, change the things you want, and find happiness and positivity in your life.
"We can only be what we give ourselves the Power to Be" - Native American proverb
