Change is Coming and That’s Okay

“I am somewhere I don’t wanna be,” is a lyric from the Tool song “Pushit” that’s been stuck in my head for quite some time. I always loved Tool, but the lyric just hit me and stayed.

A few years ago I worked an intensely stressful job where I handled hundreds of thousands of dollars (of someone else’s money) a month. I decided I needed some change. I thought if I changed my career, I would change the stress. If I would change the stress, I would change my life.

I became a massage therapist. I’d wanted to be a massage therapist long before I earned my bachelor’s degree, and I believed the idea that few other jobs could be so stress-free. I’d be allowed to work in a darkened room, with soothing music and relaxing smells all day long.

How come this lyric still weighs heavy on my chest?

I uprooted my career to a less stressful career. My job description is to decompress and relieve stress. I introduced qi-gong, yoga and meditation in my weekly (if not daily) routine. How is it that I still find myself in a place I don’t want to be? How am I still stressing? Why do I feel so stuck?

I understand that there will always be some amount of stress in one’s life, I started to think, to dig, and to ask: What is it? Why am I still in a place of high stress?

It hit me. I thought just changing my career would do it. I thought adding a maybe once- or twice-a-week routine of stress-free time would be the magic cure!

Change? Well, it can be scary. It can be daunting. It can be discouraging. But it’s coming. It’s often necessary. And it can certainly be encouraging, too.

It can also be done only halfway.

I only partially changed.

I didn’t change what I eat, what I watch, what I buy, who I spend my time with, what I spend my time doing, what I think, how I speak … I could go on listing these minor changes I didn’t even think about looking into to help lessen stress.

I’ve been saying for years that positivity breeds positivity, yet I haven’t been the most optimistic. Instead, I hold on to the concept that I often find myself some place I don’t want to be, I refuse (or I’m scared, discouraged, exhausted, ignorant) to change the place I find myself not wanting to be.

When I sat to write this blog post, I procrastinated and visited social media. And there it was. A quote. As if I needed a kick in the butt. It was along the lines of, How do you expect to get healthier if you stay in the place that’s making you sick?

Change isn’t always easy. Stress will always be there. We all feel stuck at times, and that is okay. Growth is also okay. Change is also okay.

If I want to feel better, I have to also help myself feel better.

 

Megan Andreuzzi is an animal lover and a traveler from the New Jersey Shore. She earned a degree from Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania, USA in Liberal Studies with a dual concentration in writing and a minor in theatre.