Creating Change

In December 1955 Rosa Parks decided not to give her seat to a white passenger, as she was supposed to. She didn’t just change civil rights with her action. Things were never the same again. You see creating change in reality comes when people decide to do things differently, even if it costs them something. Rosa thought her cost would be jail. If a little old lady could refuse to submit to the racist laws of her country, it made it immediately possible for everyone else to do the same thing. And so they did. This genus of seemingly insignificant change can spark rebellion and sway the direction of a nation. This is how it is going to happen with you, it begins with a spark.  Change is never insignificant and any change with a vision for good goals and consequences is revolutionary. We often take a path that didn’t serve us in life, and the consequences of those choices made by us or for us, often lead to drug addiction. The addiction is the symptom of these underlying choices and the emotional consequences we had to face. Willing or not. But all is not lost. Change can happen at any time. It is never too late to be a person who is busy with the business of creating change.

Creating change, the change that Rosa made was what some refer to as ‘the point of no return’ or as ‘the tipping point’, as Malcolm Gladwell referred to it in his best selling book with the same title. He argues that there is a special moment that comes along when the scales suddenly and momentously tip in one direction or the other. At this moment there is no going back – things have changed for good. Darkness has been converted to light. When things tip, world wars can start and end and nations can be built or broken.

In people we find that real change often only occurs at rock bottom, when it becomes absolutely necessary. We avoid creating change to the point where we cannot bear not to change any longer. Alcoholics and drug addicts often dig a hole so close to the grave that they sometimes do not return. Those that do often have a razor close scrape with death before they decided on creating change. In other words it comes from absolute necessity.  Many people do the same with jobs they hate, or with relationships that are unhealthy, unhealthy lifestyles and of course with change in general. Only at an unspecified point does lasting and permanent change occur.

At Pathways we provide the opportunities for change to occur. For starting over. For taking a new life direction. Even if it means one that is totally in the opposite direction from the one you were travelling in. Creating change is necessary for emotional beings. It is a kind of adaption that we are capable of. With eating disorders, drug or alcohol addiction and depression, or all of these, creating change is something that once set into place, brings about a happiness and peace that we never thought even existed. We had forgotten about our own ability to change. We felt it was too hard because we failed to change in the past. But remember this wise saying that nothing is more important than an idea whose time has come! This is the tipping point we are speaking of here. That miraculous moment when a shift happens. The Japanese call it a Satori, or an instant awakening.

There is a reason you are here. “Creating change is one of those reasons. There is a meaning to be found in your suffering and the healing to be experienced from it. Be open to learning and discovering new things. Even if you lost faith that they could or would ever happen for you. Choose by deciding if it is beautiful or ugly. From now on choose only the beautiful. Leave the ugly behind. One good decision leads on to another. Good builds on good. That is the very cornerstone of recovery!” – Mark L Lockwood