From the Desk of Guest Blogger Audra Sbarra, LCSW.
Audra is a familiar outpatient clinician to RWJUH Somerset. Her expertise is in the diagnosis and treatment of Eating Disorders.
Summer comes and…suddenly…before you know it, summer peaces right out of here.You can sense it in the days getting darker just a little earlier and the sun rising a tad bit later.
Schedules are changing. Even baseball will soon end (horrors!).
And yet, as sure as the tide rises and falls, summer will come back next year, because everything changes and then returns. Then changes again.
That’s how change works –and the harder you fight it, the worse it can become.
Recovery is all about change. Every person in recovery is trying to change some aspect of their life.
It’s hard to say exactly what makes change so hard or why we fight so hard to not change, even though we know that change is a part of life. Change is constant and permanent. For example, no one curses the night sky when the stars come out, at the end of a long day. No one gets upset when day changes into night.
So then, exactly how is it that we become so anxious and sad about an inevitable fact of life?
For starters, change involves risk. Risk involves uncertainty. For many of us, uncertainty brings out the vulnerable parts of ourselves that we would rather hide. When we try to change, the parts of ourselves that have been hidden for a long time suddenly get rattled, and we don’t always like what we see, or what we have to feel, or think about. It really is much easier to go back to the way things were. But when we do that, growth can halt and we can become closed to the possibility that we can be moved, by our own selves or by others.
One thing that can be helpful when considering if to change or when to change is to do a mindful soul search of what risks are involved in that change. Where, and who, can be the “safety nets” in this process of change?
Is it the right time to change? If not, when?
Change is not an “I” process. No one changes alone. Who can help you change? Who is an ally? Who might be a “silent resister” in your change process? Think of people that are involved in the process and think about what can happen to the relationship if no one changes.
You might want to consider the question of who am I, if I change? Who do I become? What do I dare to risk? Along those lines you may think of Who am I, if I stay the same?
Change involves seeing what is possible, even when we can’t. In his book, How to be Sick, Toni Bernhard writes about what he calls “the broken glass.” He describes the “glass” as a deep knowing that every single thing we have, will change, shift, break apart or come together, over and over again. He said every time he takes a sip from his favorite coffee mug, he knows it can fall out of his hands and break, right there on the spot. He expects change to accept change. To live this way means you always make space for change to happen.
Whether you are struggling to accept a calorie increase, trying not to binge, trying not to purge, accepting family therapy, or just trying to accept your body for what it is and not what you want it to look like, remember that the process of change is immensely courageous. It can be a great teacher. What is learned and how it is learned is entirely up to you.
I am reminded of a poem by Kathleen Raine --
Change, said the sun to the moon, you can not stay.
Change, says the moon to the waters, all is flowing .
To change!!
Audra Sbarra, LCSW