This blog is the third blog in a series of three. Have a look at the other two blogs on change and put them all together.

Changing over time: how long ‘should’ change take?

I find when students attend my health workshops sometimes it is almost like a confession for people to admit they have ‘fallen off the wagon’ as it were around things that they feel they ‘should’ be doing in order to live a better life and be ‘healthier’. They know the changes they want to make, and do change for a while, but then find themselves having to address a pattern which brings them back to where they were, or is it really? Are we still in the same place if we have lived the change we want to be even if it is only for one day or even an hour? Personally, I don’t think so as I feel like I approach making the change again (and again) from a slightly more experienced and knowledgeable place, as though I didn’t go all the way back to the beginning.

The more I reflect on this I begin to realise that (and this seems the most obvious statement ever!) that change is not a static thing. I’m wondering if ‘change’ is a purely linear process or if there is some movement back and forth, still and flowing, a more lateral approach sometimes.

When I am trying to bring about positive change, and let go of doing things that aren’t always necessarily that beneficial to me, I realise that sometimes I am OK with the ‘thing’ I am trying to change and other times it really doesn’t suit me. As I’ve been writing this blog I have had little insights into this process and my conclusion is that we are in a different space all of the time, every day.

According to The Science Museum in London,

“Your body is constantly replacing old cells with new ones at the rate of millions per second. By the time you finish reading this sentence, 50 million of your cells will have died and been replaced by others. Some are lost through ‘wear and tear’, some just reach the end of their life, and others deliberately self-destruct.”

So surely this would be the same as we approach change given that we are different in every given moment. So…

Can we be easier on ourselves around the process of change?

So can we be a little easier on ourselves about who we think we should be and who we meet in ourselves on a daily basis?

Can we actually understand how we change as a person and support the process from a positive angle rather than one of critique?

Can we begin to learn how we process change and what works for us and go with this process knowing that sometimes change involves going back a little in order to project forward again.

Perhaps this is more the nature of change than simply a one-off event, a one-time move where we never go back to where we left from.

So the next time you are thinking about making a change to enhance your own life and the lives of those around you consider how the process of change works for you and to give yourself to implement this change in its fullest potential allow yourself to work with your ebbs and flows, your process of moving in and out of the change until you no longer need to go back. Be kind, compassionate and see what happens. Maybe self-love is all you need.

To get more blog posts click follow on the side. I’d love to hear your comments about change and how you notice the change process.

🙂