By Krista Nerestant
Disruption to my status quo keeps me accountable and responsible for my actions and decisions. A dark night of the soul, growing pains, or a wake-up call are factors for lasting change—the necessary ingredient—the foreign element—in transformation.
There were multiple new elements rapidly thrown at me within such a short amount of time, between nine years old and eleven years old. Everything was changing: new country, family, friends, culture, life, school, laws, and on and on. However, it didn’t spiral me into a depressive state, as one might have expected, given my trauma-filled past.
I had developed a severely optimistic attitude—verging on delusional. It was imperative to my survival that I not let the atrocities of my life dictate my worldview.
There were three principles I grounded myself into and continue to exercise in my Self-ish Lifestyle Practice:
My perspective is my reality.
I am equipped with whatever I need to survive.
I am a spiritual being having a human experience.
These all led me to ask the right questions when a foreign element was causing me chaos:
What resources do I need to survive?
How am I using these resources to overcome?
Is this healthy?
I’d had so much practice from enduring trauma after trauma that I figured this all out mostly on my own. My goal was and will always be “happiness”, to feel the electricity of life, knowing that life is ultimately good; there are just some bad people in it.
As a coach, I wanted to reframe the terms “growing pains” and “tough love” to something more positive. But the truth is, change, good or bad, can be a painful and ugly process. Discomfort is always felt to some degree.
I continued to unravel the puzzle of how I somehow ended up okay after all I had been through. The discovery of a well-balanced attitude regarding my past was necessary. I wasn’t going to sugarcoat or water down the ugliness of my past. But I held on to the fact that my choice to shift, adapt, and proceed positively had brought me success.
My next steps were to make decisions about how to live with my mind, body, emotion, and spirit intact. To this end, I:
Began yoga.
Became conscious of my diet.
Started a meditative practice.
Came out of the spiritual closet as a spiritual medium.
Sought therapy.
Invested in my mental well-being through coaching certifications and hypnosis and applied what I learned to myself. All of these things changed me for the better. There were many roads to transformation. Mine was a multitude of scenic routes full of detours, bumpy roads, unglamorous pit stops, and dangerous cliffs. The secret was to keep going no matter how many times I diverted from the path. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t a passive journey; it was one that required commitment and consistency.
Nothing is permanent. Everything changes. And isn’t that a wonderful thing? Did you know that every seven to eight years, you are made—on a cellular level—brand-new? That fact alone should inspire anyone to welcome change.
The disruption of a foreign element may cause me to double down and hold on to my current state or accept its proposed change. The one thing I love about this process is that because of it, and life is never boring. Wisdom is gained through experience, and I would not choose to live life any other way.
