Be the Change is my life’s passion and I want to reach many people with my Be the Change message, because I know that if I can do it, so can you. I’ve learned that when you examine a topic in great detail, you see more detail. One of the things I’ve learned is that you can make changes in your life by looking at six basic ideas and I’ll explain them here for you.
Change takes time. Did you watch the original Willie Wonka movie? It had a character in it named Feruka Salt. Feruka was a petulant, spoiled brat and one of her lines seared itself into my mind. She stomped her feet and yelled at her father “I want it NOW, Daddy.” Our society has become an “I want it NOW” society. The option of instantaneously achieving something has become much more of a possibility than it’s ever been before. This can be good, but it does contain some problems.
Achieving permanent change in your life takes conscious effort and time. It’s not possible to change everything instantaneously, so you have to make the commitment to yourself a) that you will begin to Be the Change and b) that you will persevere in that task until you get the job completed. When you begin to work to this end, you will soon see why perseverance and possibly many do-overs is so necessary. I’d have loved the change to explain this to dear little Feruka before she inflated and exploded herself.
Unlearning is part of the process. We have spent all the early years of our lives learning many things. We were applauded for our learning and we all worked assiduously at it. In our scooping up processes, we absorbed many things that were inaccurate. At a minimum, they are no longer useful to us. We are left with unlearning them.
Emptying them out of our mentalities, or unlearning them, cannot be accomplished by scooping them out and setting them aside, as surgery does. Unlearning is accomplished by learning. You learn what the truth is, and the untruth automatically vanishes. I was explaining this to a group of students and I used a clear glass of water that I had colored with red food dye. I positioned it under a slowly running stream of clear water from the faucet. As I explained this procedure, the water (representing accurate thought or understanding) continued to weaken the color of the red-colored water, and before our very eyes, the unlearning process became clear.
Assuming responsibility. There is only one individual responsible for you and that is you. Once, your parents were responsible. When we became self-sufficiency seeking adults, we tried the old, childhood way. It might have worked temporarily, but at some point it collapsed. Our bosses don’t want to be leaned on. Our partners don’t want to be leaned on. Our mate doesn’t want to be leaned on. Some adults lean on their children, and those children don’t enjoy it at all.
You need to consciously decide that your life, your health, your abundance and your success belongs only to you. If you claim ownership, once you own it, if there is a problem, you, the owner can do something about it. If somebody else is responsible, you can do nothing about it.
Your Inner Coach. I’ve mentioned your inner coach in several other articles. Let me introduce you to him or her right now. Close your eyes and ask yourself this question:
“What do you like the most about me?” The answer you get came from your inner coach. Spend some time with your coach. He or she contains the answers to all your questions. What a wonderful new friend to love and trust.
Setting boundaries. I have a friend who really struggles to make simple decisions. When she is asked a very simple question, say “Would you like Chinese food for dinner?” she takes this enormous inventory of everything and everyone who’s priorities she is considering that might be touched by her answer.
In plain words, she needs to ask herself only one question: “Do I want Chinese food?” But she has not established any boundaries for what she wants, what she likes, what she will or will not tolerate. Another friend describes her as a Big Bucket of Need. When you establish boundaries, you simplify your life and you really exercise responsibility for you. What do I want? Is the key question to use for establishing boundaries.
How’s that working for you? On the Dr. Phil McGraw Show, one of his most keenly insightful questions is the title of the sixth Make Changes NOW steps. Denial that there is a problem is one of the loggerheads that gets in the way of our progress. If we can honestly answer our Inner Coach who asks us “So, how’s that working for you?” I think it’s an often humorous step in getting past our old habits. I encourage you to use it.
These six steps should be of invaluable help for you to Be the Change. I hope you will weave them into your life’s experience.
~Maria
