Transitioning into Creative Change

Recently, I recognized the need for big changes in my own life. Everything from my clothes to my life didn’t seem to fit any more...  I thought to myself, “I can feel myself out- growing this life I have been living in”…to quote a favorite song.

Frustration is a voice that tells you that you are changing… transitioning into a new way of living that fits who you will become. Listen to this voice and do something about it. It can be your friend and help guide you on your path.

Embracing new habits is a challenge even when what we had before no longer serves us. Old patterns and habits can still be more familiar and comforting than change.  It is vital that we focus on what we do want, not on what we are frustrated with or we will most likely get more of the same. And as we focus on what we do want more of that will come our way.  What you think about you bring about. So get clear on your vision like the sun burning off the fog.

In the song “Butterfly” my friend Jana Stanfield sings. “If fat furry worms can fly”…. Then so can I". Where this starts to get hard is in translating those ideas and insights into actual changes in your life. You want those ideas to make a real difference to you. Good ideas aren't enough. Insights alone won’t do it. You want real changes…it’s time!

It helps to “talk yourself” through a difficult time. Choose a phrase, affirmation or mantra that you can repeat when the going gets tough…and remember to breathe! "I can do hard things",  breathe... "The way out is through"... breathe... "Becoming is the bridge to being*"... breathe... "I am loveable and capable**", I am more than the size of my bottom ( just had to throw that one in!) and my current favorite, from the wisdom of Dori the little blue fish in finding Nemo…"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming… swimming, swimming.” Just pick one that works for you and repeat it over and over in your mind.  This is the first step in bringing about change in your life.

 I am a very determined person and have the focus and stamina to run more than 13 miles without stopping, but leave me alone in a room full of decisions and in about an hour I want to run out the door screaming. So give yourself some easy, catchy phases to keep you focused. This really works. However as you focus on changing something in your life, at times, you'll regress back to your old way of thinking, and the change you accomplished will fade. I call this 2 baby steps forward and then fall into the abyss…this is not failure! Actually it is quite normal.

Please remember this. You are just falling back into old habits because that is how our brain works. Simply start using your positive mantra again. Funny how we can read the most beautiful philosophy, we can answer all the big questions of life one minute, and the very next day be right back in the chaos. Again, not because there's something wrong with us, we’ve just momentarily reverted back to an old thought pattern. We’ve lost our focus. Benjamin Franklin even struggled with this when he said, “Habit took the advantage of inattention."

Author Adam Khan teaches us that “As a child when ever you think a thought, you've created the beginning of a pattern." As time goes on, you experience similar circumstances, and the thought tends to repeat itself. Each time it does, the thought becomes more and more likely the next time, until you are an adult with a bunch of thought-habits, and some don't work because they were invented by a little kid who didn't know much about the world.

Now you're an adult. And sometimes you get an insight about how you can change for the better. But it's harder than you expected, isn't it? Why? Because your insight is just one little thought against the accumulated force of your already existing habit patterns. Repetition cuts a groove like a trough in the dirt. Thoughts flow down that groove much easier than they do in other directions, just like water flows down a trough much better than on flat ground. So you've got some dominant patterns already formed. Okay. And a lot of them produce effects you don't like. A lot of them you didn't choose, or you chose when you were too young to make a good choice. Okay. That's where you are right now. You can't do anything about the past, but you can take over the process at this point.

You can start making thought habits you want — informed and mature habits. You can do it with repetition. Replace the old fearful thought with a new abundant one. Repeat the idea to yourself. Literally practice thinking that thought. Repeat it to yourself often. Eventually that thought will become "just the way you think" and at that point, you have accomplished a real change. You have translated a good idea into real change in your life”.

Change is never easy, but it is definitely worth it. Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." It’s time to listen to the things that are no longer working in our lives, shed the skin that’s become too tight and make the appropriate changes required to evolve into the butterflies we are destined to become.

 Sources:
* "Becoming is the bridge to being" by Ken Robert www.mildlycreative.com
** "I am loveable and capable” by Jack Canfield

Butterfly
by Jana Stanfield and Joyce Johnson Rouse

I was sitting alone on a hillside, confused about what to do

My choices were all complicated, it was time to think things through

I spotted a striped caterpillar stretching her face to the sky

Dragging his cumbersome body an inch at a time.

I was feeling the pain of slow progress, when a friend of hers fluttered by

As I leaned close as the caterpillar spoke with a voice as soft as a sigh. And she said:

CHORUS

Butterfly, please tell me again, I’m gonna be alright

I can feel a change is comin’, I can feel it in my skin

I can feel myself outgrowing this life I've been living in

And I’m afraid, afraid of change

So, Butterfly, please tell me again I’m gonna be alright

I’m like my friend caterpillar, afraid of that dark cocoon

Wanting to hide in the tall grass from change that is coming soon

All of the things that we long for are born on the wings of change

Losses can lead us to blessings that we can’t explain

So butterflies remind us, there’s magic in every life

And we can become what we dream of, if fat furry worms can fly

REPEAT CHORUS

On the day of my last breath

I expect to see angels like butterflies over my head, and I’ll say

REPEAT CHORUS

So I say butterfly, please tell me again I’m gonna be alright

©1995 Bug Music /Rouse House Music, ASCAP. All rights reserved.

www.earthmama.org

Visit Katheryn at her blog: www.embracingyourcreativespirit.blogspot.com