Change is possibly one of the most difficult things we face in life.  Changing schools, partners, jobs, countries, lifestyle, mobile, etc, etc, the list is never-ending.  Every time we have to try something new, food, place, or way of doing something there is something in our mind telling us “Wait, why change, everything is working as it is. Why bother? What are you going to gain and why put yourself to all that trouble and maybe be disappointed, fail or not achieve anything at all?”

Problem is that in order to avoid change and the discomfort that may accompany it we try to look for any possible excuse.  However every time we try new food, place, job, country … we find that it was not half as bad as we thought, it was not half as difficult as we thought and in most cases, we find that the benefits have far outweighed all the reasons we came up with in order to avoid the change.

A few months ago, I started a course of change with my new health coach “Mounira Nassef”, Founder of Every Day Healthier.   During this time we tackled many things.  Mounira found me of her hardest students to deal with as I was stubborn and resisted every change.  Drinking tea is part of the Iranian culture, yet I was experiencing issues with waking up at 2 or 3 am in the morning and feeling wide awake.  I was part of the 5 AM club, but if I woke up at 2 or 3 am that was the end of me by 4 pm.  

During our two months of training, Mona patiently helped me stop drinking after 2 pm. She held me to adopt other new habits and find ways of sticking to them.

Change is hard. It took me a few weeks before I agreed and accepted to change, to give up tea, to give a habit, which I felt was part of my culture, but it was nothing other than a habit.  Change is difficult at times, once I stopped drinking tea my body totally lost its rhythm. Initially, I got a week or two of good sleep and suddenly I was awake the whole night, and slowly and, over time my full sleeping pattern has changed. I no longer wake up at 2 am or 5 am. I currently wake up around 6 am, allowing my body to recover and find its new natural rhythm and hoping that I can recover my 5 am routine. 

Embracing change is not easy, it is not immediate, it is not always what you want but it is the only way forward. I am still going through the change and my body may need time to adjust further to this new change but in the process, I have adopted other new habits such as journaling and different types of mindfulness practices, love, self-care, and much more.

A big thank you to Mona, from Every Day Healthier.