Changing with Ease… (The Echo World, January 2018)
New Year’s is often a time of reflection, taking stock and looking ahead. Whether you desire change, or are dealing with undesired change, there is much you can do to create greater ease. Even if you are not currently considering change, incorporating the following ideas into your way of being can create greater ease when change does arise:
1. BE AUTHENTICALLY HAPPY. Our ability to change, and to respond to change, is just one area where our well-being impacts our lives. People are emotional. Choices –big and small– are impacted by how we feel in the moment and by how we expect to feel as a consequence of our choice…which is impacted by how we feel in the moment. Happy people tend to perceive situations more optimistically and to make “better” choices. It’s easy to grow our happiness…how about practicing gratitude? (see my March 2017 Echo World article, The Simplest Answer, for more on happiness.)
2. LIGHTEN UP. Change is a constant in our lives…the days and the seasons turn and we are in constant flux…breathing in and out, eating and drinking, thinking, working, having conversations… We are literally experts at change, yet we often make conscious change incredibly significant, like it means what we were doing before was wrong. What if there is no wrongness in us or anything we have ever chosen? If we don’t like the consequences of a choice, what if we could just choose again?
3. EMPOWER YOURSELF. There is no such thing as “have to.” There are only undesired consequences. Pick one thing you think you don’t have a choice about. What are your choices? What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best that could happen? Even if you choose the same, you could choose differently. Do you sense how just making it a choice empowers you?
4. HAVE FUN. Whatever you choose, make it YOURS. As we choose things that contribute to what we desire in life, things that don’t contribute will tend to fall away. Be creative and adventurous…let your inner kid come out and play. Will you care for yourself as you would your most precious friend?
5. CREATE ALLIES. You are not alone. Spending time with people choosing similar change, or enjoying similar activities can be both fun and inspiring. You can locate established groups through community service organizations, library bulletin boards, even online. Be vulnerable. Ask for support from someone you trust, who isn’t attached to what, or how, you change. Most importantly, will you be your biggest ally?
You are changing…that’s just part of life. Would you like to CHOOSE how you change and CHOOSE how you live? How much more present will you be to your work..your family…your body…your life if you just keep choosing? No wrongness, no judgment, just CHOICE! How does it get better than that?