Discovering you've grown

It's a very amazing experience when you actually feel, are completely aware of, and living the changes you have made in your life. Change of any kind is very difficult and something we usually avoid, many times actively avoid, but when you purposely choose to change, the results can be empowering and freeing.
Change that comes upon you can be more difficult since we quite often feel it's something happening TOO us versus when we actively choose to change and we are taking control. Yet in either case the consistent variable IS change.
So how do you re-frame your thinking when change is coming to you instead of you seeking it? You must be willing and aware that even if  you're feeling like the victim you always have a choice. In this case, your choice is how you treat yourself and allow your own mind to process the situation. As bad as this change may be, YOU choose the level of suffering, the level of resistance, the level of victim. Being able to choose how you will adjust to this change is within your power.
The sooner you take care of you and become proactive the faster you will see yourself through the change. As painful as it may be, being in and getting through the pain, it will happen faster when you face it head on and as soon as possible. Otherwise, it's like a nagging pain that lingers and follows you into every part of your life. Walking into and through the fire will create more opportunity for growth. Continuing to dance around the pain will only keep a cloud over you, never allowing the sun the shine through.
I speak to this as someone who was a great dancer allowing the fear of change to rule my life, but I discovered that by finally embracing it and facing it head on, even though it was deeply painful - it actually passed more quickly. So you DO have a choice, whether it's a physical or mental approach - either way you choose your actions and responses to every situation.
So go out and look for change, embrace it, seek it because if you're not growing you're dying.