Tag Archives: change

Accept Change

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Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.  How do you know this is the experience you need?  Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.  Eckhart Tolle

We can’t plan life.  All we can do is be available for it.   Lauryn Hill

Only through constantly changing can we achieve our greatest potential.  Robin Hart

. . . and then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.  Anais Nin

Acceptance makes an incredible fertile soil for the seeds of change.”  Steve Maraboli

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.   Socrates

If you do nothing unexpected, nothing unexpected happens.  Fay Weldon

Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how.  The moment you know how, you begin to die a little.  The artist never entirely knows.  We guess.  We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.  Agnes de Mille

Through the Fire

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Sometimes in order for a life to be rebuilt it has to be torn down and torn apart.

Within a two year period, I lost my mom and my source of income.  I stopped seeing my therapist because I could no longer afford to pay him.  Nevertheless, within six months, I completed and self-published a book that I had been trying to write since 1994.  I resumed my exercise and lost 30 pounds.

Then I broke my foot and was in a boot for seven months, which was an incredibly difficult adjustment.  Yet, my immobility caused me to stop and think.  I could do little else but reflect, meditate, and question what was going on with my life, what I was doing, and what I was going to do.  How many people get the opportunity to do nothing?  This is very critical.  As I wrote in my book, we’re on this treadmill and we don’t want to get off.  We think we can’t get off.  That’s what I thought.  What will happen if I get off of this treadmill?  I was very unhappy.  Yet, I kept going.  I kept doing the same things over and over.

After my mom died, my life seemed to fall apart and I couldn’t figure out how to put it together again.  It was a very intense time.  Even today, I become emotional remembering that period.  But I can look back and I see that what I went through was analogous to a building being demolished.  Anything that I no longer needed in my life disappeared.  Some forms of existence cannot remain if change is going to come.

Therapy began a process of critical and immense change.  That process included many births and deaths, beginnings and endings.  I regained my health.  People and institutions left my life.  I started Ancient Seeker.  I didn’t appreciate much of my journey as I traveled along my tumultuous roads.  Change is not always enjoyable.  It can be very traumatic.  Some people don’t endure great changes.  Their lives go along at the same speed.  I experienced substantial changes that were painful and traumatic.  But I got through them and became aware of the benefits.

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Take My Life, Transform It

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Take my heart and mold it
Take my will, conform it
Take my mind, transform it
Holiness is what I long for
Righteousness is what I long for
Brokenness is what I long for
                 Take My Life by Bishop T.D. Jakes

 

For many years, I sang this song, but was silent on the “brokenness” part.  I didn’t relate to this phrase. Who in their right mind would want to be broken?  I surely wasn’t going to speak that into my life.  Yet, now I see how critical being “broken” has been to my transformation.  As long as everything stays the same, there can be no growth.  There can be no remodel or renovation.  Some of us need to be broken down before we can introduce change into our lives.

Sometimes everything has to be torn down and torn apart in order to rebuild to new specifications.  If your life is not changing, that means that you are not changing.

Faced with people and circumstances that cause tension, turmoil, pain, and suffering, I am forced to practice the principles that I assert.  Situations, family, friends, environments, and communities are all classrooms in which I have been placed in order to grow. These comprise my education in life and of human nature.

There is a bigger picture, a broader context of life that cannot be seen by a limited perspective.  Some things can only be seen by looking in the past: but for this, that would not have happened.  At times, solace or explanation cannot be found by looking in the past, present, or future.  We simply must trust the process, the journey, the Master Plan, the Way of the Universe – whatever we choose to call the constant progression of life.

In all of its manifestations, life begins, is, and ends. Physical life has birth, youth, adolescence, adulthood, old age and death.  Embryo to ashes.  Non-physical life undergoes a similar process, but cannot be as easily documented.  A steadfast and persevering tree bends, but remains standing in the midst of blowing winds.  It discards leaves in the fall and winter, and gives birth to new blossoms in the spring.  Yet, the strongest tree can be felled by disease, fire, flood, or other external conditions.

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Unstoppable

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She was unstoppable, not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them.   Beau Taplin

The mind has a dilemma.  It is afraid of change, deeper change, yet the mind is attracted to life, which is change.  Don’t be mixed up in all that business.  You merely observe casually, passively, and keep your attention inside your Heart.  Mooji

I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.  Steve Jobs

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins, not through strength, but through perseverance.  H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The will must be stronger than the skill.  Muhammad Ali

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.  Confucius

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential.  Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.  Without courage, we can’t be kind, true, generous, or honest.   Maya Angelou

If you can’t believe in miracles, then believe in yourself.  When you want something bad enough, let that drive push you to make it happen.  Sometimes you’ll run into brick walls that are put there to test you.  Find a way around them and stay focused on your dreams.  Isabel Lopez

We Make the World

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Healers are spiritual warriors who have found the courage to defeat the darkness of their souls.  Awakening and arising from the depths of their deepest fears, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes.  Reborn with a wisdom and strength that creates a light that shines bright enough to help, encourage, and inspire others out of their own darkness.  Melanie Koulouris

Being a candle is not easy.  In order to give light, one must first burn.  Rumi

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.  Wayne Dyer

Whatever we focus on or give energy to is what presents in our life.  Feed what you want to manifest.  Maya Gentry

When a child learns to walk and falls down 50 times, she never thinks to herself: “Maybe this isn’t for me.”  Unknown

See the light in others and treat them as if that’s all you see.  Wayne Dyer

Anything that costs you your peace is too expensive.  Unknown

Our awareness moving as our thoughts, desires, feelings, and senses generates an experiential reality or world around us. We are the authors of this world.  Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. With our thoughts we make the world.  Gautama Buddha

Deep Cleaning

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Deep cleaning my house has been very slow.  It’s taken months.  I’m finally getting to the point where I’m vacuuming my very filthy carpet.  As I vacuum, I think about things.  It’s been a trying time.  There are so many things that I need to do that I can’t do: maintenance my car.  I have deep cracks in my ceilings.  In my bedroom, the ceiling is bowed.  According to the Internet, this signifies that I immediately need to call a structural engineer.  But I can’t afford it.  I’m hoping that the issue is not the foundation.  I’m thankful to get through each day without my ceilings falling in.

I think, “why why why is my life like this?”

The thought came to me that I was the one who wanted to change my life, to turn my life around.  If you want to learn a sport, to become healthier, or to become proficient in anything, there are certain things that you have to give up.  You have to give up refined sugar, sitting in front of the television all day, drinking and hanging out every night, especially when you’re “of a certain age.”  Even though, to me, giving up income is not the same as giving up ice cream or cookies or TV, it still is, in a sense, a giving up of something.

The intent that I expressed to change my life has somehow overridden my desire to have instant money.  Left to my own devices, I would continue to do the things that have caused me to gain weight, to sit all of the time, to be unhealthy, to be unhappy and stressed out of my mind.  The Universe, responding to my intent, stopped and blocked me and said “no no.  You’re not going to do this.  You’re going to do THIS.”

My solution would be to win a million dollars.  This would solve all of my problems.  I don’t know why I can’t win the lottery when others have.  Apparently, that’s not in line with my intent.  Perhaps that outcome would change my life, but would not change me, which is my ultimate intent.

The path that I used to take seems to be closed to me right now.  Perhaps in the long run, looking back, I will see that it was a good thing that it was closed because otherwise I would continue to do the same thing.  It was easier to get and go to a miserable job every day to obtain money.  That’s what I’ve done for the last 25 years.  It’s been a good way to pay my bills.  If I could do the same thing that I had been doing, which is to be able to get a job quickly, then I would be working right now.

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Want and Decide to Change

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I live in a neighborhood where music, often loudly played, expresses violence, cursing, and misogyny as life’s normality.  It is blasted by young boys on bicycles with attached speaker trailers, cars zooming down or parked on my residential street, or people in their homes, blasting the music for everyone within a two block radius to hear.

Listening to my personal music collection gives me hope and inspiration or makes me dance with glee until I realize that I am no longer the twenty-something who could move my body non-stop until the wee hours of the morning.  Sometimes, positive phrases from my songs’ lyrics pop up without command when I’m in a tough situation.  I wonder what pops up in the minds of those who listen to gangsta rap or other music, games, videos, or other media that promote chaos instead of peace.

Although I cannot prove a connection, I witness behavior and speech that appears to match the music played publicly in my neighborhood.  The other day, I was pulling weeds from my yard.  A man walked by and told me that I was working too hard.  He suggested that I just “set fire to it.”

A death on the block caused the entire street to be completely taken over for a couple of weeks by people coming to pay their respects.  They blocked driveways, double parked, opened car trunks that became open bars.  They ate, drank, smoked, and openly sold or exchanged drugs.  Kids ran and played like they were at a county fair, picking up bottles of alcohol like toys, using the contents to water lawns that weren’t theirs.  Trash was left in the street and on private property.  The aforementioned loud music was played until well after dark, when the police finally showed up to shut the partying down.

None of this is seen as abnormal or disrespectful.  Residents’ rights or comfort are not considered.  Requests to move cars and pick up trash and bottles are met with hostility.  I think the music affirms and supports a generational culture of thinking and behavior that feeds dysfunction, limitation, crime, and mental, physical, emotional, and social dis-ease.  This is how some people live.  This is how they like to live and how they are comfortable living.  And all of the laws and government programs trying to address racism, income and other inequality, health care, crime, and whoever’s life matters will have a short-term impact until whatever is going on inside of people is transformed, especially as regards the children.

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Improve Your Technique

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When I have time to fully devote myself to a spiritual path, I become financially destitute.  When I work, I become so exhausted and stressed that I don’t pursue a spiritual practice.  I become mentally and physically depleted and unhealthy. This seesawing back and forth seems endless.  I need to make money; yet, I haven’t been able to make it in a way that is nourishing and honoring to me and others.

This morning, during swim team, I did speed intervals.  After the first set of three timed swims, I was exhausted.  I came in even on the second swim; then lost two seconds on the third.  During the second set, I decided not to focus on speed, just technique.  I felt that I wasn’t going very fast.  I wasn’t using much effort.  Yet, I came in 2 seconds faster than my best time in the first set even though I thought I was swimming more slowly.

I told my coach, “This doesn’t make sense.  How can I go faster by swimming more slowly?”  He responded, “When your body is streamlined, you diminish your drag and go through the water more quickly with less effort.”  By the last swim of the third set, I beat my time by four seconds!  This was amazing because I wasn’t killing myself trying to go faster.

As with swimming, struggling to manifest income is creating a drag.  I must relax and focus on my technique.  I am practicing tapping into the Universal Consciousness that has abundance flowing to me without my having to struggle for it.  I don’t want to exhaust myself anymore.  When I tie into the Universal Consciousness, I receive communication according to my capacity and in a language that is understandable to me at that present time.

Improvement involves practice.  When I am learning a better technique, swimming is not as enjoyable.  It is tiring.  My muscles are weak in the new ways in which I want them to work.  My body and my brain want to return to the old ways.  It’s easier to do as I have always done.  Sometimes I don’t want to go to swim team and listen to my coaches encourage me to change.  Change is hard.

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Change Self

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Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.   Leo Tolstoy

Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.   Eckhart Tolle

You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.  Eckhart Tolle

Awareness is the greatest agent for change.  Eckhart Tolle

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.  Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow.  Let reality be reality.  Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.   Lao Tzu

Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time.  We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.  We are the change that we seek.   Barack Obama

The Process of Change

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After creating through external means for years, I now want to see what happens when I instead bring forth the external through awareness and activation of my inner Resource. Committed to this experiment, I developed the following to facilitate my transformation:

Step 1.  What do I Want?

The first step is figuring out what I want.  Beyond the material things that I think will make my life easier – money, money, money – what I really want is peace.  I want less stress.   I want joy in my life.  I want to do what I want and not what I have to do to make ends meet.

I don’t want to keep repeating the same types of experiences over and over.  I want to learn the process of navigation, not simply how to handle a particular person or situation.  My goal is to externally express peace, joy, and fulfillment from my deep and abiding inner consciousness.

I now see that my anger and victim mentality, even if justified, created more stress.  By taking personal responsibility for my life, I am depending less on “them” and more on how I can bring more joy, peace, and security in my life. What can I do today to be happy? How can I better love myself?  Am I making decisions from joy or obligation?  What choices am I making that take me away from what I want?

Step 2.  Start Doing It

Start doing whatever it is that you want.  For me, I post Ancient Seeker every week.  Sometimes I’m late, but I make writing and posting a priority.  I practice yoga.  I meditate.  I swim and bicycle.  I prepare my own healthy meals.  My goals are to be more consistent; but, life intervenes, so I do at least one of these things every day.

Step 3.  Move Away From What is Not Supporting Me

Make choices about those with whom you associate, with whom you spend most of your time.  As much as possible, limit the presence of people who are determined to remain entrenched in negative thought, beliefs, behavior, and speech.  You don’t have to kick people out of your life, but you can minimize contact with those whose normality is creating tension, drama, demands, neverending rain, chaos, and neediness.  I know that some have pulled away from me because I’m not contributing to their lives and I completely understand and support their decisions.  Not everyone can hang through my metamorphosis.

If I am not strong enough to move myself upward while pulling someone else along, I have to let go and I give others the same right with regard to me.  If someone missed the boat and is stranded on an island, are you willing to jump off the departing boat knowing that you might die on the island with that person? Are you willing to jump in front of a train to save another?  Less dramatic, for what are you willing to give up your joy and peace of mind?  These are choices.  There is no right or wrong.   There is only what you want and choose to do.

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