Change, You, News, Who?
I keep coming up against/with the idea of change. This distinction came up pretty clearly for me recently so I thought I'd share some thoughts around it.
What actually is change? When I started to look at this I realised that my idea of change itself changes, like a chameleon. For example, I spent a lot of time wanting to change who I was - the language here is key. I spent a lot of my life thinking I should have been different to how I was. I felt I wasn't happy with who I was and therefore I had to change that in order to be happy. I now see that it was not possible to change who I was; it's not possible to change who I am. In fact, I mistook acceptance for change. It wasn't change I was after at all.
Things start to become difficult when we try to change who we are. When we think we should be changing who we are but really we could be accepting who we are.
This is where a lot of inner conflict comes from. When I've felt confused about my direction and purpose I have had people advise me "Look at who you want to be, or at who you need to be in order to have/make/do this or that thing." I could never do it.
When we want to change who we are, we are going nowhere apart from into confusion and conflict. The conflicting thing is that who we essentially are will never change (let's call it the sum total of our life experiences, all now in the past) , we can only change our behaviour, attitude, emotional state right now. The rest we don't have a choice around. It's gone, in the past. Not who you are but it has made you who you are. Almost a contradiction.
What makes you you is the unique perspective, abilities and talents you already have. The conflict happens when you think that your own unique talents and abilities are not enough, not what you want, not who you are or want to be.
Changing who you are will never work and I spent years trying to figure that out, until I realised that I could never change who I am, but I could adjust my attitude, emotional state and sense of satisfaction.
In so many way life is just made up, but we are each given something beautiful to nurture - who we are. And if we are able to treat who we are with respect, love and compassion, it's unlikely we will ever want to change.
So are you looking to change or accept who you are?
Fear keeps us afraid of who we are. Fear is an illusion.
I love the contradictory nature of us!
Play with acceptance, with accepting you for who you are. There is no other.
By the way, my nature course starts next week. Still places available - so if you are short of cash you can still do it, if you are free on a Thursday evening for the next few weeks you can do it. If you fancy going on a journey within to meet Your connection with the natural world, you will love this.
meeting your nature
This 6 week online evening course will start on Thursday 10th November, between 7.30 and 9pm GMT and will continue until Thursday 15th December. Meeting Your Nature – is an evening course I’ve…
Newz
Oh and some more good news. The mindfulness course I've been running with the Basement Recovery Project in Halifax has gone well and they have agreed to continue my work there. I am very happy about this as I LOVE working there and get a whole lot of satisfaction and powerful learning experiences from working with people in addiction recovery.
Have a great weekend