The Nick Evans on.....Change

Change, Change, Change (but not necessarily in that order)

Oh god no. Not change. Do I have to?

I'm not talking loose change nor a change of clothing. I'm talking about real change. Inner, personal, deep rooted lifestyle change. I'm not going to lie. It's a right fucking cunt of a thing to try and do but there it is. I guess it's inevitable to us all.

Change happens all the time. Even when we don't realise it. The world is constantly moving, weather atmosphere, energy, science, the transfer window (unless it's Rooney, Suarez, Bale - Yawn). Things happen all the time. It's called life and it's perpetual motion. So why do I find it so hard to do?

When I first went to AA 12 years ago, they said 'you don't have to change much Nick. Just everything'. I had no idea what they meant. Only now am I beginning to glimpse what they meant.

There is superficial change of course. Hairstyle. job, partner, place to live, exercise. All of these are valid and lead to feeling better about yourself. However if all you do is concentrate on cosmetic changes they will invariably wear off and that feeling of general dis-ease always comes back.

I should know as I speak from personal experience. I have been attempting these cosmetic changes for 12 years. They don't last. I find deep rooted inner change hard. As do most of us.

The real change they were talking about I guess is on a spiritual level. A deep psychological level. Sure lifestyle comes into that - it has to. But that just sends me into more confusion - do I change things and hope my thinking follows or do I change my thinking and hope my actions follow?

If you're anything like me I hate change. I am like most humans, a creature of habit. 3 sweeteners in my tea, usual place to stand in Yoga, usual seat in a meeting, sweep my hair back to the right. We find solace, peace and comfort in habit. But what happens when these habits affect you? What then?

And how the f**k do you change? How do you get a psychic change? How do I go from negative to positive? How do I go from dark to light? How the f**k do I quit smoking?

Recently it has been becoming clear that I need to make big changes in my life. It feels a little insignificant talking about this when there is so much pain and serious shit going on in the world but I'm going to take the plunge anyway.

If change was so easy there would be no obesity, disease, addiction, death, debt, suicide, divorce and misery. We'd all be cartwheeling bouncing around saying 'I FEEL GREAT'!!!! It would be like a permanent CBBC programme. There would be hardly any pharmaceutical industry, the counselling and psychiatry industry would fold and booze/cigarette producers would go out of business.

Change is ultra hard. Changing habits one of the hardest. Changing your mind set, thinking and spiritual life even harder.

For me I need to be right up against it to change. I need to take things to the edge to even consider another way. I need to be Either spiritually broken, in deep emotional pain or health affected before I contemplate changing. I feel I'm getting towards  reaching that point now.

Things are starting to gather pace and since I reached 40 the clouds are gathering - all of them pointing towards different degrees of change and if I'm honest I can't accept it, I don't want it and it's causing me emotional pain.

Not accepting something and carrying on as you always had because it worked for you 20 years ago, 10 years ago or 5 years ago I believe to be one of the biggest source of unhappiness and pain in the world.

Knowing you need to change but not knowing how or being prepared to try is a painful place to be. I feel a part of me is in that now. And I know I'm not alone because I see so many other people who all suffer in their own way and find change hard to do. It's hard isn't it? Especially alone. How many of us want to get out of unhappy marriages. Hate your job? Locked into the rat race, can't stop eating shit food, feel in a rut? Depressed, unhappy yet every day carry on wanting to change but not knowing how.

It's not the actual changing that's hard it's the ego's resistance to it. That's the money shot. Right there.

For me - It seems that's lots of things I have used or done instinctively over the past few years to make me feel OK, or hold me together are causing issues.

 

 

 

 

Smoking heavily. Gives me something to do with my hands, suppresses appetite and gives me a kick. I am totally addicted to nicotine.  Now my chest is burning, I'm wheezing heavily and it's not very sexy when you're going down on your girlfriend trying to deliver multiple orgasms and you have to stop, rake your throat out of phlegm and then cough up a belter - then expect her to be retain horniness and carry on? I don't see that in the Karma Sutra.

I know I should stop but I love smoking, i'm addicted. I use it as a distraction. I block emotion, feelings and life with it. It is the ultimate avoider.  But how the fuck do I stop?

I Always having to have something in my mouth.(insert Gay joke here)  Either diet coke. Sugar free gum, apple, grapes, cup of tea, cigarette. It's almost on an constant loop. Smoke, stub out, swig diet coke, pop gum, chew, spit out, smoke, stub out, chew gum, swig diet coke, eat apple, gum., smoke, swig etc etc x40 times. Fuck me can I not sit still and just be?

 

It's like a compulsive over eater, or drinker and drug taker always needing the next fix. Am I trying to fill up that empty hole in the soul? Is it the ultimate in avoidance? is it addiction, habit or just bad practice.

So what's the Result of all this? My teeth are rotting from so much diet coke. (god knows what insides are like) - chest wheezing from ultra smoking. Candida in blood stream causing extreme fatigue and hangover like symptoms from ultra addiction to sweetener. And still I continue - why? Because it's whats glued me together since I stopped drinking. I don't know any other way.

 

So what most people will be screaming out by now - why don't you just stop. Most normal folk have a choice in what they eat, drink, do. If they do too much they have that elusive thing called 'self control' and just stop. Addicts seem to have been born without the 'stop' or 'pause' button and carry on until the end.

In addition I have a dodgy lower back from lack of strengthening and years of ultra endurance running/ironman over past few years. (What's that Nick? A feeling? An emotion? Unsure of what to do - fuck me go out for an 8 mile run to avoid emotion or actually doing anything)

There's only so much you can run away from. Only so much the body can take and since I hit 40, holy fuck my body has been shutting down.

Of course it's age and getting older and my body/head are simply telling me. You cannot keep abusing me like this.' It's literally like I'm canning myself and used to feeling shit half the time

Am I addicted to misery? Do I love feeling shit? Is my self esteem that low that I want to keep myself down there because it's a comfortable place to be?

It feels like it is locked into a deeper low self esteem/fear based thing. The habits become addictions. The addictions become habits. You get away with it because other things make you feel good. These things make you feel good sometimes and there's always a little part of me that thinks. 'Well you don't drink or do drugs any more Nick so you can do all that'.

 

Part of me is terrified to stop. I stopped drinking, shagging. drugging. What the hell will I have left? it's the only thing holding me together. Even though it's actually making you fall apart - such is the cunning of addiction. The truth is it will help to set me free. Allow the spirit and real change to kick in yet i'm keeping it out by piling tons of shit in my body.

So - what to do to change this?

• Do you just stop everything? Lock yourself away and don't smoke, drink fizzy drinks, chew gum, stretch and do Pilate's for 8 hours a day whilst drinking wheat grass?

• Do you try and moderate and cut down on one thing at a time and try to slowly and gradually eliminate them from your life? (An ADDICT has no control over this. One too many and a thousand not enough)

• Do you go cold turkey on one thing A time?

• Do you attend a support group or 12 step fellowship over them? (Is there a 12 step programme for sweetener, diet coke, cigarettes, buttered processed meat, cans of tuna, gum, exercise a holic?

• Do you just carry on until your body and minds gives up and then radically change? (why wait until an illness to change?)

• Do you carry on but not change and spend your life complaining and moaning that you need to change but don't (That's my favourite one clearly)

• Do you pray for a total higher power spiritual intervention and psychic change beyond human control?

• Hypnosis/counselling/CBT/psycho-analysis?

My truth Is I don't know. I really don't. I don't have the answers.

The change isn't just about these areas. It's in my thinking too. So long thinking negatively. Feeling I'm not good enough just fucks up any kind of ambition. So long being too frightened or unfocused that I dabble in lots but commit to little.

What do I actually do? What is my direction? when am I going to get on with things? Do I want to try to be a comedian? Why am I not writing and performing? Do I write a book? Do I do a recovery blog and video blog? Which area? Do I try and be funny? What the fuck - aarrgghhh!!!! Confusion!!

I'm as used to a certain way of thinking as I am to smoking cigarettes or chewing gum. I'm as used to procrastinating or putting things off or avoiding as I am downing diet coke. Could these all be possibly linked? How can I spiritually change if i'm loading my body up with toxins and shit?

I've been banging on about change for so long. I go through periods of ignoring it, covering it up but it's always there. tapping you on the shoulder. Like some relationships - you know when you go into one for the wrong reasons? Because your fearful of being on your own but you know it's too painful to try and do it alone and be OK on your own. Putting off real change gnaws away at your soul. It causes deep rooted unhappiness that cosmetic fixes can only alter sporadically

 

 

I'm convinced change can only come

a) - when the person's soul is ready

b) - when they actually ask for help in changing

c) - when the alternative is so unappealing they have to change

d) - when they try hard to and then the 'new way' becomes as comfortable as the 'old way'

I think Change change change can only come with the help of a higher power and the effort of yourself. God will give you the shovel but you've got to do the digging. Then in order to get it Practice Practice Practice. I think it's all got to go. I don't do moderation.

Its a good job I've got all the answers. Trouble is I've smoked 6 silk cuts, drunk 2 diet cokes, 4 cups of tea, chewed 5 sticks of gum during the course of writing this.

Do as I say not as I do should be printed on my T-shirt today. I have the knowledge it's that sodding ego resistance that causes the pain.

That ladies and gentlemen is the biggest conundrum, if we had all the answers and did everything ourselves then there would be no need for religion, church, 12 step fellowships, alcohol, drugs, prescription medication, tobacco companies, breweries, junk food outlets or undertakers.

 

Change is hard. I just hope I'm ready to try it soon (insert prayer here)

 

The Nick Evans