Change

Remember when you’d watch or hear stories about rocky relationships? The people would separate and get back together, all based on this idea of “change.”

They had a violent temper before, but they’ve changed. They weren’t faithful before, but they’ve changed. All of this talk about change had me thinking change was something that people were able to do.

When I was 19 or 20, I wrote a list of 43 items about myself that I wanted to change, and I stuck it on the refrigerator of my first apartment. 15 years later….I’ve lost the list, but I’m still working on the change.

Change is an optimistic concept. It’s something we think we can do in a couple months. By changing our habits. I’ve “changed” a lot in the last ten months because I haven’t had alcohol since June 2020. But did I really change? I still find reality and presence to be overwhelming, and I still look for tools to take the edge off of my existence. Only now, I pick up my credit card instead of alcohol.

I didn’t really change.

I have truly spent my entire adult life trying–and failing–to change everything about myself and I have arrived at the conclusion that change is fucking hard. And it takes forever.

One of the reasons that positive change is so hard is because it requires a deep and constant awareness of your physical/mental/emotional state and your triggers at any given moment. You have to be ever-vigilant that you’re practicing your “changed” behavior, which is easy when you’re well fed and well rested, but not so easy in the other times.

I know we’ve all dealt with a lot of upheaval recently, and my family and I were no exception to the gauntlet that has been the roaring 2020s so far. I recently flew from Qatar to the States due to a family emergency, where I worked on a multi-hour time difference for more than a month.

Now that I’m back in Qatar I’m exhausted, and I’m seeing how quickly all of the positive internal change I’ve created evaporates without the energy to constantly consciously cultivate it. After six weeks of basically just trying to reign in the runaway carriage of my life, I have very little mental energy to devote to the upkeep of Bryoney2.0.

Instead, Bryoney beta is running, because Bryoney beta is who was seared into my brain through a lifetime of experiences and interactions.

If you remember, Bryoney Beta had a deeply flawed aspect of her programming where she would mentally abuse herself all day every day by default, which manifested outwardly as crippling depression and anxiety.

Here’s what I think is interesting about the brain: our thoughts forge pathways in our brain, so the more we think a certain thought or type of thoughts, the stronger and more efficient that pathway becomes. So we form these thought patterns/ habits that are not necessarily true, but are the shortest point from a to b in our brains.

In practice, this kind of looks like a child who had to be hypervigilant about not doing anything to upset their caregiver might develop this hypervigilance by constantly thinking about anything “wrong” that they say or do. Because of their relative helplessness as a child, this might be the only means they have to protect themselves when dealing with an unstable environment or a particularly reactive caregiver, so naturally they obsess. As an adult, even though they are no longer helpless, thinking about what is wrong with them is a deeply ingrained thought pattern, so this adult might have severe anxiety and not understand why.

And that’s where this notion of change comes in.

If we believed series, this anxious adult could just write affirmations on their mirror for like a month, see a psychologist like twice, shamefully read a self-help book, then go on drinking with their friends. All fixed. All “changed.”

In practice……not so much.

There is a lot of backsliding.

And that backsliding can become compounded, because slipping back into negative habits becomes its own obstacle, doesn’t it? We think negative thoughts, which lead to negative emotions, which lead to negative actions, which lead to negative thoughts. The good ol’ shame spiral.

All I know is that I’ve been trying to fix the 43 things that were wrong with me at age 19 for the last 15 years, and I don’t even know what those things are anymore. And most of the time I don’t even believe there’s anything particularly “wrong” with me anyway.

But then I get overwhelmed.

And overtired.

And I don’t have the fortitude to dig new neural pathways. My mind gets tired, and the thoughts want to take the road more traveled. And I spiral, and I question myself, and I have intrusive thoughts. After 15 years of work, I can now identify the spiral. I can explain to you exactly why I’m spiraling. I can acknowledge that my frustration is valid. But I can’t quite plug up the dam.

Anyway, all things pass. And all problems look better after a full night’s rest. The important thing in these moments is not that I fight the thoughts (which only creates more negative thoughts). Instead, the important thing is that I don’t buy into the thoughts completely. I let them ride, but I remind myself that they will pass. They are in essence a mood, not a truth. And maybe most importantly, I remind myself that they are a protective mechanism. Because even if our self-protection shows up in ways that seem counterintuitive, it is still a tool that helped us to survive at one point.

My yoga teacher speaks a lot about the “gap” between your true self and your thoughts. The best way that I can explain it is think of your mind (which produces your thoughts) as a computer. Then think of your true self as the electricity that is used to power the computer. The electricity is so much bigger than the device it powers, but if you’re not looking closely you won’t even see it.

You are not your mind.

You are not your negative thoughts.

You are the power source…you are the one that uses the mind and thinks the thoughts.

For me, even knowing these simple truths–that I am not my negative thoughts, and that my negative thoughts will eventually pass–has empowered me to make different choices in my life.

But sometimes, when I’m triggered, I feel like I will never change.

Shame

As a part of my yoga teacher training, we learned about the seven chakras and their blocks. Chakras are basically points in your body where energy collects. They symbolize different levels/aspects of human development, and they transform energy and sent it upwards so that you can achieve higher consciousness.

Starting at the base of your spine you have the root chakra. This energy point is related to your physical survival. When it is functioning well, you feel safe, stable and secure.

And so it goes, traveling up your spine, you hit six other chakras along the way: the sacral, which is related to emotional and sexual development; the solar plexus, which is related to socialization and self confidence; the heart chakra, which is related to love, compassion and forgiveness; the throat chakra, which is related to communication and interaction with a higher vision; the third eye, which is related to intuition, wisdom and transcendental understanding; and finally the crown chakra, which represents higher consciousness and a clear perception of reality without duality or attachment.

These chakras require care for yourself body mind and spirit in order for them to function optimally. Our experiences in life and the characteristics we’ve adapted to cope can lead to issues in our chakras: they can be overactive, they can be underactive, or they can be blocked.

Lately I’ve been thinking and talking about that third chakra: the solar plexus. This chakra is located in your spine behind your belly button, and it is the seat of your personal power. A person with a balanced sacral chakra will have healthy confidence and self-esteem, and they will be warm and generous.

A person with a blocked sacral chakra will feel overwhelmed, depressed, unable to regulate their emotions, and they will have addictive tendencies. They feel powerless.

Do you know what blocks the sacral chakra?

Shame.

And then I think of all of the perfectly healthy things I have been ashamed of in my lifetime: being afraid, being sexual, being lonely. Needing someone to love me. Wanting someone to love me. Needing approval. Needing acceptance. Not knowing how to “control” my emotions.

I was ashamed of my anger in situations when anger was an understandable response. I’ve been ashamed of my sexuality at ages and times when it was normal and healthy to have a sex drive, from a biological standpoint.

I’ve been ashamed of being “boy crazy” for my entire life, ignoring the fact that there weren’t many stable things in my younger life, least of all a father figure, so of course I would try to find an “easy” replacement for what I was lacking in boys.

Shame.

Shame.

Shame.

Shame for not being Christian enough, shame for not being “pure,” shame for not having a relationship, shame for not being happy, shame for being ashamed.

Now, at this big age of 34, I look back at myself and my heart just breaks for that young human who was so ashamed of herself for being and wanting all the things that we evolved to be and want: I want sex because as a species we are designed to reproduce. I want company because as a species we evolved together–we could not survive alone.

And it’s not just me. Why, ten years ago, were so many of us ashamed to admit we need each other? Why did we think it made us weak to admit that we were young and healthy and we wanted company, and to be loved? Why are we expected to be self-sufficient to the point where it goes against our biological programming?

Why is something like “daddy issues” a cultural joke on the person who had the shitty father? Like they didn’t suffer enough from the actual bad father, they also have to carry the stigma and shame that culture assigns to behaviors that could have been prevented if they’d had a good fucking father.

Why do we do this to ourselves, and why do we do it to each other? I’m so sad and so tired of carrying this burden of shame that is doing nothing except making me feel depressed and powerless. You cannot apologize your way into love and acceptance. You cannot regret and suppress your way into happiness. We have this one life that is made up of an endless present moment, and we are the only constant we have from our first breath to our last.

I mean come on guys, we’re not Hitler over here. Most of us are perfectly alright human beings trying to play the hand we were dealt. Why are we so ashamed of ourselves?