The other side of change

The thought of changing what wasn't working in my life was waaaaaay more overwhelming than maintaining the status quo, despite how miserable I was. Instead of taking action, I'd gripe to friends ad nauseum/practice physical avoidance/drink myself silly rather than make a (long overdue) change.

Because doing those things was so much easier than changing things!

Who's happy all the time anyway? When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade! Life's a bitch and then you die. 

I figured I would die in a big vat of vodka lemonade. That would be a whole lot easier, and a lot more fun, than facing what I needed to change.

Fear of changing what I needed to change ate away at me for years. Sure, I put on a good front, but inside I was crumbling. Making a big change petrified me. There were no guarantees about what was on the other side of that change. I could be floundering and alone, struggling to get through each and every day. I might never be able to function.

Maybe my situation wasn't that terrible. Maybe this was as good as it gets....

The sleepless nights. The high blood pressure. My constantly trembling hands. All brought on by me, because I was too afraid of changing what was not working.

Alcohol became my very dear friend.

Then, after several years of hanging on by an ever-unraveling thread, The Big Lie happened. It took The Big Lie to make it painfully obvious and crystal clear that I had to get out - because I was too scared to do anything before that. Fear had kept me paralyzed.

The Big Lie jolted me out of my self-induced coma. And when that  happened, there was nothing - nothing - left to hold on to.

Change was the only way out. And I would have to be the one to create change--I was the only one who could do it.

It was time for a change, and the time was now.

Fuck. 

After The Big Lie happened, I could not eat (bad timing, since I was registered for a 60mile bike ride in a couple days). I couldn't sleep. Dazed, I tried to function as well as possible for a few weeks, going through the motions of trying to live normally, while knowing that nothing would be 'normal' again. Pure adrenaline kept me going (even on that bike ride) until I collapsed from exhaustion.

It was surreal. Some days I felt as if I wasn't even on this planet. The wracking sobs that went on for hours. The anger. The overwhelming sadness. The questioning. The resignation....

Finally, I set change in motion. There was no turning back this time.

For a change.

Change in motion. Going through the motions, swimming through pirahnas trying to get to - and trusting that there was - "another side."

That "other side" came into sharper focus when The Universe (I couldn't say God at that time in my life) realized that this time I was really going for it. I wasn't turning back. I was finally doing it!

​I finally found the guts, and the strength, and the determination, to change what needed to be changed for years.

There WAS life on the other side.

And it would be better. Because it had to be, and intuitively I knew it, even though I was scared sh**less.

It was like The Universe had been waiting and waiting and WAITING for me to make that change. Because things started lining up in my life as if a magic wand had been waved.

There is something better on the other side.

And I was finally alive to notice.

​*************
Is there something in your life that you know you want to change, but fear of the unknown is too overwhelming? 

If you're thinking that sometimes it's just easier to suffer through stuff than to deal with changing it, think again. How are you benefiting? What are the real costs?

©Catherine Borowski, 2017
www.celebratingwealth.com

---