Embracing Change

Hello, beautiful souls! I’ve been pondering again. Yes, it’s true. And I keep thinking about how slowly a society changes. Why? Because I wouldn’t object if it shifted into more elevated ways of thinking a little more quickly, to be honest.

So, I’m looking across the world at the ebbs and flows of societies and I see that on a personal level we all seem to resist change. We like how we are. It’s tiring to challenge and change ourselves sometimes. It’s work! And we also ask, is it worth it?

But here’s the thing, we need personal change before society will change with it. And while we’re thinking about it, we’ll change a tire before we will change anything else about our lives. It’s worked well enough so far! Or has it?

Now, why do we resist change? Why is it so hard?

If we know we could and should be a certain way, and it makes sense on all sorts of levels, we should just make the change, right? Has that worked for you all that often? How about following up on new habits or breaking old ones? Has that been easy?

Most likely not, and that’s ok, because something important is happening that you don’t know about, but I am here to tell you about it.

Unfortunately, our brain rarely changes that way because it is often already operating on old survival belief systems that have been installed when we were little (in effort to survive, feel safe and loved.) And it’s been working well enough so why change it? There better be a darned good reason, the brain always says!

But why do we have to force change so much? Why does change feel so hard?

If you are wanting change, then you have to know what you are already operating with. And you have to know what you’re in conflict with. We only change when there is little to no conflict within our systems. Make sense? Kinda?

Let me give you an example, I had a client who had been depressed most of his life, and always felt he was in the shadows of what he could have been. He was a great musician and had a lovely life in many ways.

However, he was always in conflict with his whole experience. He was jealous of other musicians, who got more fame and glory than he did, even though he felt he was just as great a musician. But he never chose to do those things that got noticed, either. He stepped back. He always stopped himself from shining his true self. Why was that happening if consciously in his mind, it was all systems go? Why was he so depressed and at odds with himself?

When we worked through it with NLP, he finally realized how he was self sabotaging, and it came from long ago and far away. What was it from? He got embarrassed once as a child, and he took his father’s laughter as a judgement. He created a belief that he wasn’t good enough because he didn’t want to be laughed at, or judged, in any way shape or form.

And that one small experience that lasted less than five minutes colored his whole world, from how he handled relationships, his career, his family. He was in constant turmoil! But when we made new associations to that past experience, and new insights such as “oh my gosh, my dad was laughing at the situation, not at me! And well, now that I think about it, it was pretty darned funny.” And then all that conflict, all that fear and self-sabotage went away. It was incredible and beautiful. And so simple when we knew where to look.

Here’s what is going on: Our brains make blanket statements about a particular experience because it is designed to keep our bodies safe. But when we make blanket statements, such as all spiders are horrible and will kill you, all snakes are bad, all authority is out to get you, if I do this, then mom will love me, then we limit ourselves, and thus our experiences pretty quickly. AND we don’t update them when we are older.

That’s a bummer because then, when we have tons of self-limiting beliefs, we end up being half the person we always wanted to be. What do we do?

We need to address our belief systems that worked then but no longer work now. We need to make adjustments in the operating system so we can get along a little bit better and allow for growth, expansion, tolerance, love. And when we do that, allowing for change will be much more exciting and maybe even… fun.!

And back to the subject of our societies, since they are made up of people who are making blanket statements from childhood experiences, it will, of course, reflect these human experiences. This is why I believe societies shift slowly. This is why racism, and all the other isms perpetuate for as long as they do. But there is hope. There’s always hope.

When we heal ourselves individually, then society will naturally begin to elevate it’s consciousness and its belief systems accordingly. But we need to own our our thoughts, beliefs and actions and update them appropriately. It’s the only way we can make society better for tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

Until next time,

Did you know I wrote a book? I did!

And you can get it on Amazon. If you are stuck, wanting to find the great beyond outside of traditional therapy, this book is for you! It’s a self-leadership blueprint to completely transform your life.