ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

- Wayne Dyer

You often hear people say, “I don’t even recognize myself. I am a completely different person.” I never really bought into that statement. What do you mean you don’t recognize yourself? You’re you. I believed in change of course. But small, manageable change. New hair, new job, new interests. But deep, soul altering changes? I never really gave it much thought. Until it happened to me.

After my 30 year relationship ended I felt lost, alone and terrified. I had spent more than half my life in this relationship. I was 21 years old when I entered into it. For the most part, it was all I ever knew about being in the world. It was who I was. My identity outside of this relationship did not exist. Who was I if not part of a couple? I felt like I was just being born. Except instead of being born into a family where I was fed, clothed, and loved, I was drop-kicked into a totally unfamiliar life and left to fend for myself. I had to relearn everything about being in the world completely on my own. This was not just change. It was complete transformation.

Once I realized that I couldn’t just fold up into the fetal position and hope everything worked itself out, I realized that I had to reinvent myself. I had to figure out who I was going to be. I had been living on auto-pilot for 20 years give or take. Now I had to intentionally create a new life. But I had no idea how to do that. But out of necessity invention is born. Because I had to figure it out I would.

The first thing I did was take up yoga. Probably the most significant decision I made during this period. It strengthened my connection to a higher power which was never more needed. It gave me a sense of community and made me feel less alone. It’s also where I met Nicole, the studio owner. I feel like she saved my life. She helped me process a lot of heavy emotions and taught me how yoga is so much more than poses and movement. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had just met my first life coach.

Once I was a little stronger I started looking for ways to connect to people again. My previous life was very insulated. I hired a Reiki healer. She changed my life and 4 years later she is still impacting my life. I hired a counselor who gave me coping tools that brought me out of depression and anger. I joined a Meetup group and the first person I met became one of my closest friends. She introduced me to kickball which led to meeting my new circle of friends, who ended up being Godsends during Covid.

All of my previous beliefs such as “If I leave the relationship I wont be happy.” “I’m not good at sports,” “I cant talk to people,” and “I’m an introvert” were out the window. It taught me that your beliefs can really impact your ability to change your life. Question all of them.

What I learned from this 2 year journey is that the key to happiness lies in your relationships. Surround yourself with the right people, seek out help when you need it, learn from those who have made it through the fire and you just might look in the mirror one day and wonder who that person is staring back at you. Transformation, it turns out, is like raising children. It takes a village.