Lift Your Life With the Power of Personal Change
“One moment can change a day, one day can change a life and one life can change the world.”
— Buddha
If you want to be different than you are today, if you want results from your resolutions, resolve to learn how to change yourself.
Therapists, counselors and coaches, gurus of self-help, give us the universal message that creating change starts with you.
You are the only person who will create authentic change in your life.
Authentic change begins by altering your patterns of thinking, followed by actions that support your well-being.
You must become a special expert on yourself. No one else knows your life better than you do.
“You must do the things you think you cannot do.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
As the power of “know thyself “increases your clarity, you begin the change process.
The art of self-help centers on adding value to your life.
We can use our talent and our innate ability to adapt to create change that sustains us.
Start from your instinct first, like when you learned to walk.
Was it an intellectual task?
Consider the natural growth process of any child as a model for the process you need to develop now.
It took lots of grunts, falls, and efforts to learn to take our first step.
If we wanted to get to the cookie jar, we had to learn to stand and walk.
If we care enough, it will spark our personal change process into action. We need to want what we desire for a reason.
This is often difficult because it is easier to just ride the flow of what is, excuse ourselves from the important task of taking on our development.
We might need experts or teachers who offer us their knowledge to help us acquire our steps to success.
We must do things on our own, yet we need people who support us in our goals.
No matter how small or large your goals are, resources, inspiration, and help are required.
“He who has a WHY to live for can bear almost any HOW.”
— Frederick Nietzsche
Life helps us because it presents us with opportunities and challenges to learn from.
We fear mistakes and failure when we ought to embrace the learning, they offer us.
With an open mind and a willingness to learn, we will reap gold from daily life,
Right now, a better outcome, with more success waits outside your awareness. It is a gift that you can open today.
Among the myriad of learning waiting to be discovered, of utmost importance is your “WHY “.
“Discovering the “WHY “is significant and shows us the way to ‘HOW”.
If you are aware of your purpose, you have an advantage in stoking your motivation. If you are searching for a purpose, your action and intention will reveal it.
A plan that engages you in the change is a wonderful way to build your interest in establishing your foundation of skills.
Once we learn how to change our behavior, we can learn to create change that sticks.
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”
— Lao Tzu
You might be surprised that many of your “WHYS” come from difficulties or trauma, even abuse or injustice.
Every one of us has experiences in life that marked our memories, experiences that hurt us or traumatized us.
These experiences are motivating and can be a part of our vision of what we want now.
We wish to relinquish the negative patterns that were caused because of what was done to us.
Are your “WHYS” linked to a vision you have?
Do they come from a compelling drive within?
We need to stoke that engine of motivation with passionate emotions and purpose.
When we set out to accomplish with purpose, like all of nature, energy follows and so will see the changes we want.
You can’t get there by longing for it to happen, take the first step now.
What are your reasons for taking better care of your well-being in 2022?
Maybe it is simply wanting to feel and look better. Maybe there is a “not” knot in you. “I am not going to be like my: fill in the blank.”
I don’t want my children to fill in the blank.”
The “not” knot has piloted more therapy sessions and catalyzed major behaviors gains.
What we don’t want to be or become can raise our sails as we set forth.
When people arrive for support in therapy because they have lived through the worst that life offers, the “WHY” is so evident. We can tap into the power to create healing.
The possibilities start to grow, we make gains in areas where we were blocked.
The more knots we discover in our life, the more we yearn to be free from the havoc they created in our life.
“Be kind to others so that you may learn the secret art of being kind to yourself.”
— Paramahansa Yogananda
The pioneers of mindfulness teach us to let go of useless ways of living and thinking. They model self-compassion.
Compassion for self and others is linked to the practice of Loving Kindness.
For many people, it is difficult to be kind to ourselves.
Self-Compassion means treating yourself and all your problems, with the same love and kindness you offer to someone or something you care about.
It is often easier to begin by thinking about someone or something we love to experience compassion.
We can borrow from the experience of compassion for another to generate self-compassion.
The research on meditation shows that it does wonders for human health, growth, and well-being.
What would adding love and kindness to the process give us?
Even taking one deep breath matters. Every breath we take matters.
Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, pause for a breath.
Be kind, kinder, be your kindest self. See what kindness can do for you.
“Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
— Louise Hay
People often share about the pain of feeling that the experiences they had in life damaged them.
Many people voice this by telling me “I feel broken.”
We can’t evaporate our pain, but we can recover our balance, hope, and possibilities.
I tell them that although they feel broken, they are whole and beautiful.
My “WHY” is that my words are true, we have infinite examples that model overcoming adversity and suffering.
We don’t minimize or hide the wrong, but we join up to improve and heal the past.
All human beings experience pain, loss, trauma, and suffering. Accepting that these are not caused by us, can free us to flourish. If we let it go, we can find healing, we don’t have to keep reliving the pain.
“There is no normal life that is free of pain. It is the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.”
— Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers)
Self-Improvement points to the way we use our human qualities to live better.
Self-Care is finding the skills to heal depression, anxiety, trauma, or neglect.
We learn to stand up, speak up and not allow the harm to go unnoticed.
We reap the blessings and benefit from the value of all our life experiences.
If we cultivate a resilient spirit, we will make progress.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
— Mark Twain
