Be an artist of change

My clients and students often ask questions about how to handle going through times of big change and new growth.

Here’s my take on change and growth, and how to navigate what sometimes feels like a bumpy ride.

It all begins with you: You want to change, and you decide to make positive changes in your life. Perhaps you’ve done this before, many times. Maybe you embrace being an agent of change. Some of the changes you’ve gone through in your life came about as a result of you choosing to change, and some might have come about suddenly, with an unexpected event you experienced. Either way, change is upon you.

You change your career, decide to heal yourself, or let go of old habits and people who aren’t good for you. You lose a job, move to another city, have to find a way to adjust when big changes happen in your life. You’re bored with the old and want to create something new. You’re conscious that the pictures you had for yourself and how your life would be, are not how it looks right now, and you want to do something about that.

Maybe this whole conscious change thing is new for you, and you’re just now realizing that you have the power to change your life to be how you want it to be.

It isn’t up to anyone else, it’s your job. An empowering realization for sure, but also a tiny bit scary. Who do you blame if it doesn’t work? People are waking up and seeing that what they’ve had, while it might have been great for a while, suddenly no longer fits the bill. They’ve outgrown old identities, or they’re tired of not getting what they want in life. They become aware that time is passing quickly, and they want to change.

Spiritual evolution is the name of the game on earth right now. People are realizing that in order to create a more peaceful sustainable life on earth together, we need to change - and that means ourselves from within. You can’t do this for another person, because spiritual growth is personal. Your growth is your business, and nobody else’s.

What about you? Where are you growing and changing? How is your life different than it was a year ago? If you’re walking your own path and committed to your growth, you are making changes every day, even on those days that feel stuck, where nothing seems to happen. Sometimes the best way to grow is to let yourself have a nap and do nothing, a lesson that I am particularly challenged by, though naps are getting easier to have.

Here’s a few ideas about making growth real, in other words, creating sustainable changes for yourself.

1. If you want to be an artist of change, and you plan to create huge things in your life and grow a lot, the first thing you want to make sure that you do is listen to your body. If you learn to respect your body and listen, you can create a healthy communication that makes it easier for you to reach for more growth. 

If your body gets angry because you aren’t hearing it, you’re going to get stuck. If you’re in judgment of your body because it needs to slow down sometimes, you’re missing the point of spiritual growth. Your body moves at a slower vibration than your spirit does, and that’s exactly right. If you’re trying to make your body a race car, and your check engine light comes on, you need to listen.

Your spirit is in charge, but if you grow a lot spiritually, if you ‘know’ a lot but can never seem to make what you know work in the body, you may need to get down to earth, to take care of your body. The kind of growth I’m talking about here is bringing body and spirit together. This is where it gets real. Spiritual growth won’t matter as much if it continues to be at such a high vibration, ie; out of the body - that you can’t bring it in. 

Practice meditation and tools that help you to get in your body. Meditation is a great practice for doing this, in fact, it’s designed to do this very thing.

Feed yourself with nourishing foods that your body wants. Get enough sleep, exercise, relaxation, fun. Your body is always telling you what it wants, and this will help you to have the energy to take that next big step you want to take. If you think you can grow spiritually without bringing your body along, your body will find a way to make you listen.

This is one of the best ways I know of to create fruitful, long lasting growth. Be friends with your body - create a new habit and say nice things to it!

2. When you change, you affect others around you.

If you are able to work with energies such as forgiveness, letting go, and non-judgment, it’s going to be easier to have your space. If you grow, but you’re in judgment of those who aren’t growing yet, you’ll get stuck. If you see yourself as being better than they are, you’re missing the point of why you’re changing to begin with. 

So, my second suggestion about having sustainable change is this: learn to allow others to be who they are, and where they are. Stop trying to change them, fix them, judge them, or convince them. You can certainly make friendly suggestions, but you can’t decide for them or make them do it. 

When you try to make others grow, so that they can come along with you on your journey, you put energy into their space, which they will resist because you’re trying to control them. If you’re waiting for them to be ready before you grow, you’ll hold yourself back. Instead of this, keep doing your own work. Mind your own business. You can tell them how much what you’re doing is helping you, and I hope you do, but don’t tell them how they need to do their own work. When they are ready to change, they will change, in their own way.

Letting go is one of the most important parts of this. Letting go is crucial  when you want to grow spiritually. Give yourself permission to let go of that which no longer serves you, and that includes everything and everyone you’ve outgrown. You may not know yet where you are going with all of this growth. When you’re walking your own path, it’s not pre-determined. You get to make it up as you go. This is just the way it is. And yes, it is your business.

Finally, for today’s post anyway, but this list is by no means a complete one:

3) Love yourself. If you’re holding back on self acceptance and self love because you find yourself disappointing, you’re going to have a tough time growing. Part of  the point of spiritual growth and change is to get to know and LOVE yourself. If you don’t know how to do this for yourself, it’ll be hard for you to allow others to do it.

If you’ve been holding back on self approval until you ‘proved’ something to yourself, why not just decide to love and approve of you as you are right now, imperfections and all. Then you can become a friend and ally to yourself, which makes it a whole lot more fun to be you.

Remember that you don’t have to improve yourself and grow constantly, so get off your own back about this. Some days you need to just sit and be, without a list to accomplish, or things to improve in yourself. You may need to laugh loudly, so go hang out with a funny friend or watch a funny movie. I recommend an improv show, or live comedy. Silly fun is great for times of intensive growth.

Thank you for reading and listening, and I hope all of your times of growth are fun for you!

• ©Kris Cahill

• Image @Unsplash