What does it take to change your mind? What is something that you recently changed your mind about? What process did you go through to change your understanding/belief of something? What did you learn about the process of change?
I’ve always been scared of change. The idea that nothing is permanent? That I don’t know what the future holds for me? That everything could turn on me in the blink of an eye? It’s terrifying. ‘Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change’ – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. And it’s true. Change is uncomfortable. But it’s also necessary.
But why? Why am I scared of change?
This was a question I thought about a lot, especially after the classic ‘Who am I?’ and was the beginning of my identity crisis in 2020. After months of talking to someone who disappeared almost as quickly as he appeared, I began to question who I really was. In that moment, my entire identity collapsed, and my sense of self went tumbling down the rabbit hole. We all have our own views about our surroundings, our lives and ourselves – and the moment everything becomes inadvertently unclear? It’s absolutely terrifying. After all, my past experiences, my mindset and my emotions had been working hard to build this thing that immediately fell apart after one hardship.
So what happened next? How did I pull through one of the biggest challenges of my life?
‘It’s only after you’ve stepped out of your comfort that you begin to change, grow and transform,’ (Roy T. Bennett), and that’s exactly what I began to do. I began my journey of change to change, and by opening myself up to new ideas, experiences and change, I realised that my beliefs of who I was and who I could become was entirely up to me.