Canyons in the Mind

 The biggest challenge I face, and this is common for most people, is wanting to have things change NOW. 

It's difficult to make lasting changes because they require consistent, persistent, continuous efforts. And patience.

Much like it can take a long time for water to establish a fixed course through a landscape, it takes time for desired patterns to become established in our mind and life. The longer we persist, the deeper those patterns are etched into the landscape of our minds, with the results being manifested through our actions.

Bad habits and especially addictions are like canyons eroded into our minds, with the resulting actions as predictable as the water flowing through the high walls of the canyon. These changes require us to consciously and with continual effort redirect the flow. That redirection requires continual efforts to erect barriers to keep the flow from returning to its previous course.

Over time and through diligent efforts, those canyons can be filled and the flow of our lives changed for the better. We need to be continuously vigilant of those previous paths and make sure we guard ourselves from them. The flow may be redirected in our desired direction, but if it happens to go into its previous course it could take us back to where we were. Over time we have erected dams and levies and slowly filled in the eroded areas. 

But we need to maintain watch and be diligent to protect ourselves against breaks. The moment we think those previous courses are sufficiently strengthened that we can just "try" the previous habit or addiction "one time" and we can go back, we may discover the flow can quickly erode past, under, or through the brief opening we created, and the flow will find its previous path.

The goal of changing life is to not go back to where we were. We want something better. 

Why should be go back? Because the process of change is uncomfortable and uncertain. We know what we would like, but we can't see how we will get there. Our past is comfortable, its known, its reliable. Even if there are parts of the past, including past behaviors and habits, that we don't like, to our subconscious self it is comfortable, reliable, and results are certain.

But to become better than we are, to make the huge leap in our lives, requires that we let go of the past and not turn back to it.

We need the vision of our future, our dream. It needs to be vivid. We need to become emotionally involved with it. We need to long for it. We need to take the step forward, often stepping into the darkness before a light comes on the show us the next step.