Change Was Never Meant to Happen Alone

Today's practice: read today's message and reflect upon it as you go about your day.

I've spent a lot of my life believing that if I wanted something to change, it was up to me to figure out how to change it.

And in many ways, that's true. Nobody else can make my decisions for me, change the way I think, or take responsibility for the life I'm creating.

But somewhere along the way, I confused taking responsibility with having to do everything on my own.

I thought I needed to have the answers. I needed to work through my problems, overcome my limiting beliefs, and get myself to a place where I finally had everything figured out.

Which, as it turns out, is a pretty lonely way to go through life.

One of the things I've come to appreciate is how difficult it can be to recognize my own patterns when I'm right in the middle of them.

I can spend an entire afternoon worrying about something, convincing myself that the worst possible outcome is just around the corner, and not even realize how caught up I've become in my own thinking.

And then I'll have a conversation with someone I trust, and they'll say something that helps me see the situation completely differently.

Sometimes it's a question I hadn't considered. Sometimes it's a perspective I hadn't thought of. And sometimes it's simply someone reminding me of something I already know but have temporarily forgotten.

I've also had the experience of listening to someone share what they're going through and realizing that I've been struggling with almost exactly the same thing.

There's something comforting about discovering that the thoughts and feelings I thought were uniquely mine are actually part of the human experience.

But what I've found even more meaningful is that these relationships work both ways.

There have been times when someone has come to me for encouragement, and as I'm reminding them of what they're capable of, I realize I needed to hear those same words myself.

Or I'll share something I've learned from a difficult experience, and in the process of helping someone else make sense of their situation, I'll come away with a deeper understanding of my own.

It's a beautiful thing when personal growth stops being something I'm doing entirely for myself and becomes something I get to share with other people.

I've come to understand that the people I surround myself with matter. Not because I need everyone to agree with me or tell me what I want to hear, but because I want people in my life who are committed to growing, who are willing to be honest with me, and who genuinely want to see me become the person I'm capable of being.

And I want to be that person for them, too.

I still believe I'm responsible for the direction of my life. I still have to make my own decisions, practice what I'm learning, and take the steps that only I can take.

But I no longer believe that doing the work means doing it alone.

In fact, some of the greatest gifts I've received along the way have come from people who were willing to walk beside me, share what they'd learned, and remind me of what's possible when I couldn't quite see it for myself.

And the more I grow, the more I realize I get to offer those same gifts to someone else.