Change is essential to recovery. Unstepping the box that has been your limitations, negative beliefs and distorted and/or convoluted thoughts is the action that leads to recovery.

For those who struggle with mental health challenges change can be the most difficult thing to facilitate. In order to change we have to learn to think outside of the box that we have grown accustomed to thinking in. We also need to step outside of that box and expand the horizons of our personhood. If one doesn’t one may be in danger of living his/her entire life being defined more by a diagnostic label than their humanity. Living this way can mean not achieving the level of recovery that is yours to reclaim and to own.

The box you need to unstep is the limitations of whatever diagnosis you have been given. The box holds within it whatever negative core beliefs you’ve clung to more out of habit then any conscious choice about who you are and who you can truly be. No matter what challenges we have, we can overcome them. We can learn to compensate for them. We can continue to grow and to learn. We can create our own normal

Often what feels familiar, regardless of how limiting, unpleasant, and painful it may be, provides us with an illusion of comfort and predictability. But what masquerades as comfort may well be what is keeping you stuck in a place that you know you want to grow past.

As Winston Churchill once said, “There is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure” That’s what change is about, daring and enduring. Change does not come about without stress and effort. Change takes time.

There comes a time in one’s journey when stepping out of the box that you’ve allowed the system to define you by is crucial to moving forward. Accept yourself. Know that who you are and what you experience is okay. It is what is “normal” for you. Respect yourself and others and know that challenges are no excuse for bad behaviour.

Don’t let any professional tell you that you can’t change. Don’t let any professional tell you that you need a better pill in order to be a better person. Don't fall into the trap of believing that there is an everyone else out there that is somehow better than you because they are deemed to be more normal than you are. That is bunk! Part of the landscape of recovery has all to do with coming to the realization that even with a mental illness you are still a worthy, vital and meaningful part of the sea of humanity. You matter, just as you are. Don't let anyone tell you any differently. Refuse to be shamed for what you have to cope with or you have had to go through. Refuse, also, to let what you have gone through or to some degree still have to deal with to leave you feeling "less than". Having the challenge of a mental illness does not make anyone "less than". Don't let anyone tell you that you aren't competent. Don't let anyone tell that you cannot contribute to your community/society/ world! You can. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't pursue your dreams.

Parting with old past patterns of behaviour even though we’ve come to find we can’t be perfect is like parting with precious illusions that were some how our invisible best friends. The kind of best friends, though, that one wouldn’t really wish to have.

The journey over the landscape of recovery is one from helplessness to empowerment. It is about reclamation. Committing to this reclamation in our lives means letting go of trying to control anything or anyone outside of ourselves. It also means simultaneously taking the personal responsibility necessary to control ourselves and to take care of ourselves while letting go of what we think about others or what others may think about us.

To quote Johann von Goethe, “Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” What matters most is that each one of us accomplishes the change that he/she deems necessary to implement in life in order to live the very best life possible in spite of whatever challenges you continue to face.

Change requires that we open new channels of thought. It also requires that we are prepared to dare enough to take risks and to navigate our way through new experiences. As Soren Kierkegaard said, “To dare is to lose your footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose yourself.”

Dare, endure, identify what truly matters in your life, continue to seek recovery by momentarily losing your footing and risking change lest you risk an enduring loss of yourself by not choosing to walk through the landscape of recovery one enlightened step at a time.

as of April 21, 2002