Is Change Harder When No One Notices You're Different?

Is Change Harder When No One Notices You’re Different?

This morning I had a rare opportunity to walk into the men’s dressing room at the YMCA and hear someone discussing me—negatively. The gentleman didn’t know me, but someone else who had taken my class years ago had told him that I was a strict yoga teacher and, if he goes to my class, “DON’T BE LATE!”

A friend of mine was talking to him about the class and telling him it was awesome. Then my friend said, “Well, Bo is standing right behind you.”

Fortunately, I thought quickly and laughed, helping the guy not feel so bad. I told him that, indeed, I had been a strict yoga teacher, but over the years I realized that yoga was not about being exact and perfect, but about being in touch with your own body. The truth was that I hadn’t been strict for about 14 years. Still, my reputation proceeded me.

That information makes me wonder if anyone thinks it’s truly possible for a person to change—including myself. I have heard myself state: “He/she will never change. The said person will always be a user, an abuser, a narcissist, or a thief….”

But the lesson of this day makes me have to take another look at judgment in general. If I want people to see that I am a different person than I had been in the past—even yesterday, than I am going to have to stop judging others as harshly. As you know, “what you sow, you will soon reap.”

The other part of this issue is that changing for the good of changing—because it’s the thing God/Spirit would have you do, because you want to be a better person, and not because you want others to think you are a better person—is just the right thing to do. We are ever evolving. We could be changing into an angry person or an anxious person. Or we could be making effective steps toward trying to find out the root of our poor habits and press forward into healthy, authentic change.

No one wants to look back at his/her life and think, “I could have done better, but I just never tried hard enough.”

When my father had about two days to live from a pancreatic cancer diagnosis, he shared with me that he finally understood about life. That living wasn’t about anger and holding grudges, but it was simply about loving one another. “That is all that matters,” he said to my partner and I as he held our hands and cried.

I know he told me that because he had spent the majority of his life, judging me, living for others, and not living up to his potential to love unconditionally—especially to his children. He didn’t have a problem loving others outside the home, but when it came to expectation from his children, we never were enough. I believe at the very end, he understood that he had made a mistake. I was one of the lucky ones who got to hear him actually confess to me and my partner that very truth. I thank God daily for that gift.

I also get to live with my mother now, who left my father and her six children when I was in third grade. I didn’t see her again until much later in my life. I didn’t get to know her and truly love her until the past seven years, since she moved in with me. This, too, is one of the biggest gifts of my life.

When she asked me if she could move in, I could have said, “Absolutely not.” But, instead, I thought about the possibility to work through all of the trauma from my past and become a better person as a result. I’m so glad I made that choice. I’m sure, I will live the rest of my life being grateful for that decision and also for her presence in my life.

My friends adore her. She has become an amazing individual, not just a mother. She has learned to let go of the past and not live as if everything were a drama. That, by itself, is a huge feat, because she grew up with a Constable father who was terribly abusive to her and my grandmother.

She has told me that her father would send her and her two sisters to bed hungry at least one day a week. So, now my mother’s desire to eat quickly and more than enough is almost innate and a knee-jerk reaction.

I have the same feeling about eating too quickly, because when I grew up with five brothers and sisters, we didn’t have a large sum of money for groceries. So, whoever got finished with his/her first serving was the lucky one to get a small extra portion. My sisters and brother hovered over not-eaten food on my siblings’ plates like vultures. The older ones tended to glean the most, which is why my family album photos look like I was undernourished.

I say all this because I know change is possible. I’ve seen it my life, and I’ve seen it people who have been close to me. I also know that most of the time people don’t change. But that doesn’t mean that change isn’t possible.

Today, try to look at everyone as if you have never met him/her before. See if you can expect nothing when you engage with another person. Imagine you have never met. Only the Now is important. If you can do this, maybe we can all see each other as changing consistently through time and create a better tomorrow.

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Bo Sebastian is a Hypnotherapist and Life & Health Coach, available for private sessions to QUIT SMOKING, Lose Weight, New Lap-Band Hypnosis for Weight Loss, CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE! at 615-400-2334 or www.bosebastian.com.

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