How Committed Are You?

Making any kind of change is very difficult when we aren't truly committed to it. So what is commitment and how do we find it?

I see people use meditation and become spiritual all the time to feel better when they are sad. But they often drop the practice once things get better. Finding commitment is hard to do, but we don't want to get caught in the common loop of: being in pain, working to escape it, forgetting we were in pain. We can't really escape pain fully until we learn to stay committed to change through all seasons.

Can you practice stillness when the world is good too? Can you "sacrifice" to try to stay awake at all times? This is not meant to imply that being awake isn't fun. It's only meant to show that commitment is necessary for lasting change.

How can we stay committed? We can use anchors. We can surround ourselves with books and podcasts and ideas that support our goals. We can commit to practicing meditation. But what is the thing underneath? It might just be our pain itself.

Finding your reason to stay committed is really important. What happened to you that got you started down this road? What pain happened to you? Make a point of holding on to that.

People often mention that we can't change other people. I disagree. We are all connected and intertwined. A change from you affects me. So if there is learning, if there is change, then we can point to something. We can find the "ah ha!" we can turn on a light switch for people.

The light switch is the idea that being committed makes change easy. Finding commitment can be hard, but once we find it quitting smoking, eating differently, losing weight, meditation, all become simple. So what's your reason to stay committed? Make that an "ah ha!" for you. Create new grooves of thought. Be awake to your pain. Change.