These red long-johns have little use here beyond the holidays and the month of January. We snuggle in by the fire even when it’s 60 degrees outside — just because it’s winter, just because it’s festive.
It is officially winter, but festive is over!
Christmas is packed away and 2016 almost a week old. No doubt many resolutions have already been broken, forgotten, or simply ignored. A few years ago I wiped the slate clean and decided I no longer needed resolutions, that I had broken enough. Why keep creating more?
Stop and think about it for a moment. When was the last time you truly changed or altered a behavior? Or a long-held belief? (That’s a little stickier subject, isn’t it?)
Did you just wake up one day and simply decide you’d finally had enough of x, y, or z? Or was the change gradual, something that nagged at you for awhile? Then due to hard work, continued focus, and a deep desire, your reality finally shifted, right?
If so, please help me understand how you did this.
From what I’ve experienced, long-lasting transformation and change is never easy. Most change is a product of cause and effect; and even then, repetition must occur in order to create a new behavior pattern, a new belief system, a new comfort zone. It doesn’t just happen on its own.
Often a dramatic event — the sudden or unexpected loss of a loved one, surrender to an addiction, a health crisis, or some fluke accident — occurs first. Then change most certainly follows, or (I should say) the opportunity for change follows.
It has to, right?
But what I want to know is how to instill positive change without creating upheaval in someone’s life. I bring up this topic because I believe we all face similar challenges. We see the need for change but don’t have the tools to set it in motion.
Let’s take the basic nature of human beings combined with what we know about the process of change. This is all we have to work with, isn’t it?
Just “be the change you want to see in the world,” Ghandi advises. Just be the change.
But how difficult is that? How difficult is it to create a true and positive shift in our complicated lives, much less the modern world?
Help me out, here. I’m waiting.
But I’ll warn you, hibernation never lasts long in Central Texas and these pjs are scratchy.
Soon I’ll stand at the mouth of the cave, a hungry momma bear waking up from a long (make that a short) winter’s nap. Yawning. Stretching. And wondering what adventures the new year brings.
Photo by: Ryan McGuire, www.gratisography.com
Hey, you! Thank you for this thoughtful post. Timely. In answer to your probings, what quickly came to my mind is this: Our thinking has to change in order for us to make behavioral changes. So, for me, it takes daily work, study, reading, praying, meditation. Gradually my thinking shifts and aligns with my desires, and then my behavior follows. Love to you! Dana
I agree! Behavioral changes follow changes in thinking. However, what triggers have you experienced that have caused you to feel that your thought patterns need to change? I am hoping to get to crux of what makes most of us decide we need/want to create change in our lives.
Triggers….hmm…feelings of dissatisfaction or yearning. The feeling that there is something more or better or deeper to access about our existence. The desire to no longer just skate across the surface of our lives. The wisdom that sometimes comes with age and experience. Or, as you mentioned, one of those existential crises that takes us by surprise. Then, you have to become intentional about it – raise your consciousness through present-moment awareness so that you can “catch” the thoughts and behaviors you want to change. Be prepared for two steps forward and one step back. It’s acting from the unconscious that, by definition, keeps us asleep to other possibilities. So, becoming aware that things as we have always done them isn’t quite cutting it anymore. That something has to shift for our souls to sing.
I know this feeling well, this yearning for a deeper connection with my true essence. That pull from within. I love the image of “catching” the thoughts and behaviors you want to change…a perfect description of how it works in the mind. Shifting something so my soul can sing — this makes me smile! Thanks for sharing!