You can’t change the world
I wanted to change the world, but I had to change myself first - Albert Street by Christina Mayhew
I believe any great change in the history of the world began with this one thing – awareness. No one can change something in themself, community, or the world unless they can first see what is and what should be. I’ve wanted to be someone who made the world a better place; someone that left a mark, for as long as I can remember. Initially, I thought that if I just gave more of myself I would accomplish this. So I spent many years working and volunteering with people because I wanted to make the world a better place, starting with my impoverished home community of the North End of Winnipeg. In some ways I probably did. Even though I loved the time I spent there, I learnt many things and greatly value the ways that it has changed me, I don’t think I contributed to the bettering of my community as much as I could have because there was something missing in me. I lacked a lot of awareness of myself.
The missing piece couldn’t be filled with helping others. I needed to look elsewhere. Photo by Photoholgic on Unsplash
Since moving away I have not invested a lot of time into my current community. Initially, it felt like a piece of my life was missing. Instead of rushing to fill it with “the others” I spent the time learning about myself. I learnt more about my learning styles, attachment styles, personality types, triggers, shame, spirituality, effects of my upbringing and so on. I grew in awareness of what I had experienced and who I had become. I discovered some not so great things about myself, like how I had allowed prejudice to creep into my life, or that I have a tendency to focus on past hurts (a common theme in someone with my enneagram types). But I’ve also learned some good and beautiful things about myself that I can now share with the world.
Books were one of the greatest tools I found to help me learn and grow as a person. Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
All the great changes in my life came about because I first became aware of something that was not, at least to me, easily seen. Years ago all of these themes would have still interested me but they would have remained at a distance, something I could play around with within my mind and perhaps share with people so I could look smart. Even as I write this I can see ways I could easily fall into old patterns, such as gaining knowledge to impress others, rather than to transform myself into a better, more whole person. And for much of my earlier years, that is what I did. I gained the knowledge of myself because I was interested in understanding myself. Yet I didn’t use it to grow in character. Over the years I’ve set aside time regularly to learn more about myself and the more time I took to ponder these things, the more I saw how they were impacting my life. I then saw a need to actually do something about them. Once again it was the awareness of their impact that moved me into action.
This is a journey that I have started. It’s not always fun. It requires a lot of work. I couldn’t just wake up one day and decide to become more aware of myself. I literally needed to create a regular space to be still and take the knowledge I was receiving, whether that’s about my upbringing or my personality type, or whatever it is and think about how it relates to me, how I feel about it, and what and if I should do something about it. And as I learnt more about my learning styles, I figured out how to set up a sacred space for myself to get the most out of it. For myself, it includes things like reading and journaling and discussing the concepts I am learning about. But I realize that other people may need other things. Some may need a change of environment, green space, rituals, or counselling to do this best. Everyone is different, but one thing remains constant:
Awareness is the first step, but if it remains the last step, it’s as if it never happened.