I am doing a guest blog for a teenage audience soon which I will post when I know it is live on the internet. In deciding on a subject to write about, I remembered the young girl who came up to me after a presentation I did at a local library and asked, “What did you do to change from the shy, introverted girl with no self-esteem to being the woman you are today?”
Of course, that is a long story which is spelled out in Becoming Alice. But in simple terms, the secret lies in that person making the decision to change. I know many people who have problems that just stay in the same situation all their lives without making any attempt to change anything. They don’t try to change the family member who might be causing the trouble; they don’t change the situation, be it a workplace, a family problem, or a financial problem. And least of all, they make no attempt to change themselves in any way.
Perhaps they can let a family member, classmate, or fellow office worker know how their behavior causes problems. Perhaps they can get another job or move to another town to get away from problems that cannot be changed any other way. Or, perhaps they can identify something within themselves that causes them to have such dissatisfactory lives.
I know a very successful doctor who divorced his wife and had a series of girl friends, one after another. He was unable to establish a successful long-term relationship with any of them. He became quite depressed and sought out psychiatric help. He continued seeing his psychiatrist for several years without any results. He did not want to make any changes, using his psychiatrist only as a sounding board. Obviously, the problem was within his own behaviors and persononality that perpetuated the depression he suffered.
It seems to me that in order to solve any of the personal problems anyone has, he/she must first decide to make some changes somewhere. In my case, my decision to come to California was the beginning of my being able to change into the person I became.
