Where to start the change? (Ruthless version)

It seems that you have been stuck for a long time and would like to move on. But when you think about what exactly you should change and where to start, you can't really think of anything. There are 3 reasons WHY and 1 solution HOW.

The first *WHY*

We don't really want to dig into the really big things that somewhere deep down we know we should be dealing with. We guess it would be a hell of a lot of work, a lot of mud to go thru, and it would shake up our whole life with uncomfortable side effects. So we have them repressed somewhere very deep inside us, expecting them to disappear over time or magically resolve themselves. We are willing to do all sorts of crazy stuff in our attempts to live happily ever after, but " for God's sake just don't touch THAT thing".

The second *WHY*

Then there is the category of medium-sized things that would not be so difficult to deal with and would have a big impact on your life, but often we are not able to see them ourselves. Or at least not yet. Here, someone else has to jump in and help us constructively mirror these things for us. Kindly without judgement. It can be usually a good therapist or coach, very rarely a good friend (because we don't really listen to them).

The third *WHY*

After all, there are those seemingly trivial things that are normalized by society, and so we either put their solutions on indefinitely or don't plan it at all. Because "that's the way most people have it and it won't solve our fundamental problems anyway, so don't ask me to do useless things". Like the fact that we eat poorly, don't sleep enough, drink too much, smoke heavily, very rarely do a little bit of dope every weekend, go to a job that pisses us off, date someone who pisses us off, and are friends with people who are actually assholes to us but have similar problems to us, so we feel some kind of connection when we complain about things together over a second bottle.

Just one *HOW*

There you start, with the last one! Clean it up like your room that hasn't been touched in two weeks. First, you put away yesterday's lunch and pick up the clothes from the floor. You'll find a mess on the carpet underneath, so you find the courage to start vacuuming. And because the room's suddenly looking much better, you're kicked into finishing the whole thing. You know, if you want it to be able to breathe well again, you have to wipe off the dust. That sucks because you have to lift everything off the shelves and shit, and you really don't want to, but while you're doing it already... Let's do it! You end up sitting in a fresh-smelling room that somehow makes you feel better. You're thinking about spending more time in it and not running away all the time. In 10 minutes you come up with some little tweak or remodel to make it even better.

"Why the hell haven't I done this sooner? Why have I been sitting here in this filthy place for so long?" You knew you should've been cleaning it all those two weeks, but you didn't feel like it. "Everybody's got a bit of a mess at home, don't they?" With each shirt you threw on the floor you felt a little twitch, but you ditched it and left it there, and it piled up. You noticed that you were getting uncomfortable there, not sleeping, and not breathing well and all the time you knew what to do about it. Well, never mind. We don't play the "if" game. As long as you cleaned it up eventually, you're good. That's the main thing, and it's all your achievement. Then go clean your inner room the same way.

Start with the small things you can influence and change today or at least this week. Do something different this weekend, something for yourself. A small change will give you a small sense of victory, control, relief, and self-empowerment. Three small things together will give you a little more confidence and determination to keep going. And as you check off those smaller steps, the more logical ones will reveal themselves, like crumbs on the carpet under a thrown-away t-shirt. Once you're in, and you feel those instant partial reliefs along the way, it gives you courage and an irresistible curiosity about how you might feel if you would take on the big issues. You won't get it in a week, maybe not in a year, but whatever.

Just start and don't fool me or yourself that you don't know where.

Because we all know it all along!