From Change Comes Growth

Today I will discuss the inevitability of change, why we find it difficult, how change and growth go hand in hand, the importance of having goals, and to welcome change! WHEW! That’s a lot to think about! And all of those thoughts are also part of the mechanism that keeps us “stuck” where we are and resisting changes. It has often been said that the only constant is life is change! Yet most of us find it difficult to change, especially when it takes us away from our routine, our conditioned ways of thinking.  In actuality we’ve been changing our whole lives! Some of the changes may have seems “natural” but at the time, we may not have realized just how difficult they were. When we were you young, the world was new to us. We needed to make changes to explore who we were and how we were meant to fit into the world around us. It was the openness to the possibility of failing that helped us get our hands and knees under our bodies so that we could crawl! It was the lack of fear that prompted us to take our first steps and falling so many times before we could totter around. It was the desire to move in different ways that helped us try out some dance steps, climb onto a bicycle, to figure out swimming, to put on skates, or maybe skis.  And we grew from all of these experiences and couldn’t wait to reach a certain stage of life to experience more changes. I remember when I learned to drive our speed boat and pull others on water skis when I was 12. I remember turning 16 and learning how to drive the car, and yes it was on a manual shift. To this day, I remember lying in bed at night visualizing the steps of pushing in the clutch, other foot on the brake, starting the car, putting it into gear while simultaneously moving from the brake to press on the gas as I slowly lifted the other foot off the clutch and continuing the process of getting to the “right” gear with increasing speed. At what age did we start to resist the changes that would bring so much growth and freedom? When did we become so resistant to change and where did that resistance come from? As we grow older, we usually turn our awareness to the world around us, seeking affirmation from outside and we often lose touch with our need for self-acceptance and self-empowerment. We live our lives based on a lifetime of conditioning by our families, our schools, our belief systems, our friends and work associates.  I’ve come up with 8 common reasons that might help identify the thought distortions that keep you stuck!  I recall in 1997 when I decided to leave the profession of anesthesia and open a holistic health center that ultimately became a yoga center. Any one of these thought distortions could have stopped me. Complacency? My life is okay. I’ll just leave things as they are. TD-I am making good money vs money isn’t everything.Lack of self-worth? I don’t think I can do it so why try? TD-Am I going to be able to do it vs when I’m determined I can accomplish what I want.Timing? I just can’t manage to find time for that now. TD-It will be too much work vs I’m working 2, 24 hour call shifts per week so I do have time available to use.Social conformity? What will people think? TD-Having been a big people pleaser, people will think I’m crazy vs maybe I’ll find a more supportive tribeLack of knowledge? TD-I don’t know anything about running such a business vs I’ve helped my husband open businesses from scratch.Are you the exception? Well, it might work for others, but not me! TD-What if I fail vs what if I succeed?Selfishness? What’s in it for me? TD-How can leaving my profession and the money I make be good for me and my family vs I will still be helping people, just in a different way.Fear? What will happen? And this is the big one!! It’s a thought distortion on its own. It’s fear that really underpins so much of our resistance and “stuckness.” So, I keep using this word “stuck” and it’s really the force that keeps us from being all that we can be. In yoga, it’s called tamas. According to yoga philosophy, there are only three qualities that make up all of the universe in varying proportions. These are tamas, rajas and sattwa. They exist in everything, including each of us.   Tamas is defined as inertia, darkness, depression, immobility, rigidity, stability. stillness. Stuck! Rajas is movement, dynamism, ego, passion. It’s rajas that can help us get unstuck! To move forward, to take chances and to possibly reach the third guna…sattwa. Sattwa is balance, luminosity, goodness, harmony. Most people live in this world fluctuating from tamas to rajas and back to tamas. We might have glimpses of sattwa but it is hard to achieve without considerable self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-actualization and developing the power to leave past conditioning in the past and welcome change as an opportunity for growth regardless of potential outcomes. Yoga can be the medium through which this process ...