If any of you have ever participated in the American tradition of making New Year's resolutions for positive change, then you might also know that come March, you're usually over it, right? Wracked with guilt, stammering with stress, and full of shame over another year of failure. But for what, and WHY? Why do we do this to ourselves? Being a self-help nut, and spiritual alchemy enthusiast (to put it mildly) I am obviously a proponent for self-exploration and healing of past traumas, but what I'm not for is doing it society's way, which is always with the motivation that something is wrong with us, to begin with.
Whether it be to lose that winter weight from being a little too thankful during the holidays, or to finally quit smoking, if it's something that you've set out to do in steps or stages, and especially if you've struggled with this issue before, I know for me personally, come St. Patrick's Day, I am out of self-loathing mode enough to let go of the guilt and promise myself that I will try again next year. But after repeating this nonsense for nearly a regarding smoking cigarettes and never succeeding, I realized the reason I was failing is that I wasn't doing for me. I was doing with the expectation if I quit, those in my life would love and respect me more and perhaps some would stop judging me for other poor decisions I had made.
“We Cannot Become What We Want By Remaining What We Are.” – Max Depree
I was jumbling up all of my poor choices and things I was currently working on and learning in my life into one bad habit. Telling myself if I quit smoking, then my past deeds would be forgiven, I'd get the respect I'd been missing and finally feel loved in the way I had hoped for. But because I didn't love and respect myself enough to make quitting smoking a priority, and just set the goal for myself, by myself under my conditions during a time of the year of my choice, I just made excuses and took advantage of New Year's as the time as when it's merely expected for people to change something, but not really change anything. It was a perfect little sub-conscious ego party plan to keep on smoking. And it worked beautifully for years.
So what it is that is so hard about making positive changes in our lives? We often see how quickly people can pick up habits that cause problems in their lives, often not on purpose of course, but in reaction to dealing with something terribly painful, our incredibly stressful or both. Often times people are unable to handle intense emotions and feelings, especially if they've never allowed themselves to feel them before, or if they've been raised to believe that it's a bad thing to express your emotions, they might have an extra hard time with this and with good reason. 
If anything it's a good reminder that we don't always know what other people are going through, and since we've known the sh*t we've been through in our own lives and how painful it was, we are best to be kind and compassionate to others with the understanding that they just might be going through something like that as well. It's also a good reminder that just because you might have reached a level of self-awareness that you know how to apply the information received during self-reflection, others may not be there on the same level with you. So, again it is best not to judge and to remember that everyone is walking their own path and it's never our job to tell them which way to go.
We can, of course, offer advice to slow down, speed up, veer left or right if we've seen similar terrain and have mastered a great way to traverse the course, but we cannot expect other people to listen, to take our advice, nor can we allow their choices to affect our own because ultimately, we are all learning as we go and we all need to remember that the only life we are ever truly responsible for is our own. Even our children we must eventually set free out in the world as their lives are only ours to guide, never to own. And if anything, they are greater teachers to us, not the other way around are they not?
So, next time you find yourself expecting another person to change, just think back to how difficult it is to change something about yourself. This quickly puts into perspective the chance that you have of changing someone else. Because as you also know, in order to change, you have to first want to more than anything else that has priority in your life and you have to have the guts to even begin trying. Because believe it or not, starting, (and starting again, and again…) is the most difficult part of stopping something!
Tamara Rant is a Co-Editor/Writer for CLN as well as a Licensed Reiki Master, heart-centered Graphic Designer and a progressive voice in social media activism & awareness. She is an avid lover of all things Quantum Physics and Spirituality. Connect with Tamara by visiting Prana Paws/Healing Hearts Reiki or go to RantDesignMedia.com
Tamara posts new original articles to CLN every Saturday.
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This article was originally created and published by Conscious Life News and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Tamara Rant and ConsciousLifeNews.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this Copyright/Creative Commons statement.
