We’re not the agents of change we imagined we were and when we come to see that more and more, change gets easier and easier.
Change is enabled by not needing anything to change
~Helen Amery
Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? We’ve been taught for so long that we need to be proactive go-getters, that we need to be internally motivated. That if we want things to change it’s us who need to take control and make it happen.
And it’s true — to an extent. A project won’t get from idea to delivery unless there is a body and mind here getting the work done. A new piece of art won’t be created unless the artist’s hand and arm put brush to canvas.
And – we’ve got lost in believing it’s got something to do with us, that it somehow defines us or secures us. In the presence of that belief, we suddenly NEED this change to happen.
Now we’re lost and tension arises. Because now it seems like there’s something on it. I have to complete this project or else… I have to paint this painting or else… “Or else” is rarely defined or brought into the light. Left lurking in shrouded, scary mystery.
In the presence of this psychological tension, our body responds in kind and gets tense. That’s just how it works. It’s perfectly designed. We’ve labelled that tension as ‘bad’ and worked all our lives to make it go away, distract from it or numb it out, when in fact all it’s doing is showing us resistance to wake us up to our lostness.
So when we tell ourselves ‘this new project is really stressing me out’ it literally has nothing, nada, zero to do with the project and everything – 100% – to do with imagination.
An imagined future if you do or don’t get this done.
Or a mis-remembered, imagined past about how you, or they, couldn’t do it last time and all the barriers that couldn’t be overcome.
You’ve momentarily got lost believing that this project will somehow provide success or security of some kind. Momentarily lost in a crowded mind, now full of imagination, rather than seeing what’s happening right here, now. Lost in the clouds.
The tension appears as a physical stuck-ness – and a psychological stuckness. The two systems are one. At a fundamental level, we are energy and, if you imagine carbon dioxide going from a spacious gas to a liquid to a solid – with each reduction in energy there’s a reduction of spaciousness and a reduction in movement of the molecules. Same with us. Our system becomes slower, more rigid, less fluid, less energetic, less vibrant.
In this experience of rigidity, communication and listening capability drop, fewer possibilities are seen, relationships suffer and the project is harder to turn from idea into concept.
And this experience will change. Guaranteed. 100%
Sometimes change comes quietly without us noticing. The inner resistance has gone and therefore the outer experience has become easier again.
Sometimes it’s a fresh idea that provides a breakthrough. Inner change – outer change.
Sometimes we have an awareness of letting something go that’s been bothering us – and then change re-starts. Inner change – outer change.
Sometimes we actually see through the made-up story. The illusion pops. Right before our eyes. Suddenly something that looked like it was a source of security is seen for what it really is – all just an idea. Then the next steps in the work emerge. Inner change – outer change.
And we aren’t DOING any of these things. You didn’t ‘make’ the inner experience of change happen. You didn’t ‘make’ a fresh thought come to mind. Anything that looks like it did ‘make’ it happen is a correlation, not a cause. You really have much less to do here than you ever realised.
Change is our nature. Change is wanted. Creation is wanted. Inner change is constant and natural, and therefore outer change is constant and natural. All happening with ease when we’re aligned with life and in the flow. Not getting in its way believing we somehow have something to do with it.
The more you see that the system naturally restores, 100% of the time, the stuckness never sticks around permanently, then the more you ease into the flow, allowing the natural system to bring you fresh ideas or new ways through.
And the moment we get lost again, imagining we have something to do with it, or something on it, tension returns. Perfect to wake us up again.
With love, Helen
Changing oneself is not always easy, at least for our mind which is damned attached to the comfort zone.
Attachment to anything (situations, people, habits, etc.) is a brake, it is a cage that limits our freedom to be and also to change. But above all it is our mind, our patterns in which we live to keep us prisoners and, as long as we are “asleep”, we do not even realize that we are. Each individual, in order to grow and therefore change, needs to organize the meaning of his own existence. That is, change requires willingness to open up to new aspects while maintaining continuity with the past. Certainly the synthesis of the process requires our personal processing but the stimuli that motivate us to grow derive from the outside. They derive from our relationships, they derive from the emotions that our relationship with the human and natural environment arouse.
The real change must take place on the level of consciousness; when our awareness starts to change, our thoughts will start to change too. To the extent that our thoughts change, our actions will change hand in hand, and consequently our reality.
“The real change must take place on the level of consciousness” – absolutely this. In the work I do, and am coached in myself, I find that the understanding of how the psychological system works and of what’s beyond our psychology is the opening of a door into that raising of consciousness, naturally letting go of attachments because the intelligence of the system starts to see the futility of, and suffering cause by, the identifying with ‘things’.
Thank you for reading my comment and for the added considerations.