It Takes Courage to Change

It’s my life – not my mother’s – right? I thought I had done well in my efforts to not be like my mother and yet, when it mattered the most, I was paralyzed by the fears that all we fully programmed co-dependents and shame-based people face. Yes, I was fully programmed – not intentionally – but programmed nevertheless by an equally wounded shame-based person.

I was well on my way to a lifetime of self-imprisonment when the experiences of awareness and awakening filtered through the cracks of my facade – just enough to allow my inner heroine to find her courage – and just enough to invite that courage back day after day.

Today, I work with women in early recovery and I see myself in them. I talk about how our lives are influenced from the moment we’re born. I talk about the traumatic programming of our youths, intentional and unintentional, that set down firm beliefs and responses in our neural pathways. I tell them my story and how I was able to change these neural pathways and the firm belief that I was deeply flawed. I talk about breaking imbedded patterns and creating new ones that allow for balance, authenticity and compassion.

This is not a quick process and it takes time to know that it takes time. Sometimes courage looks like patience and sometimes it looks like self-compassion and sometimes it looks and feels like a deer in the headlights but in the end, it always looks and feels beautiful and bold.

I tell the women I work with that they are courageous by making the choice to see themselves and to begin healing. It takes courage to change and I’m awed when in its’ presence .

…………..

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

~ M. Scott Peck