A Time for Change
“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude” – Oprah Winfrey.
We are each being asked to fundamentally change, to change our consciousness and in doing so change everything else about ourselves and the lives we lead. We are not being asked to tinker around the edges but to come up with whole new models and ways of sharing this earth.
How often have we revisited this idea during this year? Our physical world continues to show us the pain and suffering and dysfunction that results from our ‘old’ ways, and the longer it goes on the more important it is for us to listen, individually and collectively.
Naturally such a call for change brings up a wide spectrum of emotions from wild adventure to deep-seated dread. Basically, if your feelings are not of excitement and welcome then they are based in fear. To become good and supple at change we need to address the fear.
So, let’s discuss two sources of fear. Firstly, we have a fear of change because we believe we will lose something if and when we move forward. Maybe things are not so great where we are, but some deep underlying needs appear to be getting met – a need for certainty or safety, a need for control or even power – and the thought of moving forward and possibly losing out creates fear so we resist the change. However, the more we hold on the greater will be the upheaval and our fear may even become our reality. Remember the nature of this world? We don’t and cannot control or manage it and our true safety lies in our ability to change with ease and grace.
Secondly, we need to recognise the paralysing nature of fear and how our fear is directly proportional to our tendency to attack. Typically, we hide this dynamic from ourselves, we just hold the fear in our minds. Yet at a deeper level of our minds, we have been waging war with our world and the people in it. Once we become aware of what our mind is doing every day, we start to recognise how many attack thoughts and actions we constantly perform.
Consider this: EVERY judgment we have on ourselves or others is an attack thought. Yet we justify them and therefore don’t recognise how they adversely impact us. We even feel our out-and-out attack thoughts are justified.
If we believe our thoughts have no or little effect on us, we misunderstand the power of our minds. Every thought we have has power and direction, every thought is either building our lives or tearing it down. There are no neutral thoughts, and it is our thoughts that create our reality, not our physical actions. As Oprah says, our thoughts come first, and it is they that create our future.
To reach a place of peace in our lives means we need peace in our minds. Can we condition ourselves to be benign and give up our belief in attack? We will know when we have a peaceful mind because we will see a peaceful world, for now the fear is replaced by love and kindness and sharing and happiness.
Today, can we commit to change our attitude and begin the process of ridding our minds of attack thoughts? Then we contribute to creating a less fearful world for ourselves and others. And we can embrace the change we are each being called to make with ease and grace.
With love,
Jeff and Sue