forward or backward...change is a choice

Do you love diamonds?

Seriously! Who doesn’t love those sparkly white gems of pure love!!

Even the smallest diamond has a bright shine to it.

Diamonds did not begin all bright, shiny and sparkly. In fact, the beauty that many cannot take their eyes off began as ugly rock and very deep within the earth. It takes a huge amount of heat and intense pressure to shift the rock that is deep in the Earth’s mantle. It only emerges through a transformative process of intense volcanic eruptions.

Like diamonds – our beauty – our self – the real us - is often hidden deep within us and it takes an eruption to bring it to fruition. This process of change is our ever evolving self.

“You cannot begin where you want to end.” -Barbara Ehrens, 2005

Continual transformation, or growth, involves a willingness to take action. Learning is organized actions, small steps or movements.

I was recently working out with my trainer. He asked me to warm up by getting into a push up position with my feet on sliding discs. The warm up involved pulling myself forward from one side of the gym to the other followed by pushing back to the starting spot. I was to do this warm up twice. There was some interesting learning in this move. Pulling forward was WAY HARDER than pushing back.

Of course, it got me thinking……

Pulling forward is like learning something new, changing and growing. Pushing back is like resistance.

Resistance is so much easier to act out than growing, learning and changing.

In the midst of big changes, or even small ones – a new program, a new boss, new standards, growing kids, marriage, divorce, illness, gaining 5 lbs. – resistance is safe, is peaceful, and takes little to no effort. We demand routine that is comfortable. We insist the new is not necessary and somehow wrong for us. We tantrum to keep our personal zone clean of the unknown. In the midst of working tirelessly for OUR way….we miss out on the best of our blessings.

Pulling forward is hard….no doubt about that. It requires muscle work, mind work, heart and soul work, and drains our energy sources….. IN THE SHORT TERM only. Funny thing that we always think it will be forever draining. It never is.

Do you notice the way every fall the leaves fall off the trees leaving them barren and blah for the winter? Do you notice how every spring the trees fill back up with bright green leaves of vibrant coloring? Nature is organic change. It happens with ease and comfort.

That is the way our lives should really be and we often find they are not. Why?

Because we push back….

We resist….the beauty, the blessings and the gifts. We resist leading by example and living up to the leadership in all of us. We think we know better how our lives should progress. We think we can power up and solve our problems. It is in our own resistance that we find ourselves messed up and miserable.

“If you are not moving forward as a learner, you are moving backward as a leader.” -John Maxwell

Leadership involves heart-centered choices. Letting our lives evolve as they should be requires us to consciously make it a choice to do so EVERY moment of EVERY day. If your life is presenting a new opportunity, a shift of some sort, a change in relationships, locations, skill levels and/or ideas….LET IT HAPPEN! Your heart will never stray you the wrong way.

We learn our most basic functions from our head. It is our head that has to learn the new skills and routines. YET……in our day to day and when decisions have to be made, we operate from a sacred source – our heart. Our heart is our most sacred choice maker. We resist the language it uses; we resist the path is pressures us to take; we resist the actions it asks us to unfold.

Change is powerful! It truly is an energy boost. We make choices to resist change because we are not comfortable ”pulling forward” with heart-centered decisions. Sometimes it seems foreign to us. We beg and plead for the norm of using our head to power up. What we do not often realize is that our head is filled with noise – the voice of reason is really the voice of our past stories, of too many people who kind of do not matter, of society and the will to fit in and not feel left out, of our fears and disappointments.

“Each of guards a gate of change that can only be unlocked from the inside.” -Marilyn Ferguson

Resistance is pushing back enabled by a justification of our head to be logical and scientific.

Pulling forward – learning, growing and changing – is an invitation to that which is bigger than us. A life filled with love, peace and joy. Letting our hearts be our guiding force manifests a life that flows naturally and organically with ease. Like nature, it will emerge in us a sense of beauty and awe-inspiring moments, experiences and opportunities. It is our choice to pull forward. Are you in?

How do you resurrect change and pull forward?

Locate your energy source

Energy sources can take on many forms – exercise, eating well, meditation, sleeping, reading, hanging with a good friend, nature. What fuels you up? Figure out what is right for you. Make it renewable – meaning when you need it, there is plenty! Whatever it is, schedule it daily. Change requires effort and effort takes hard work. The muscles, the mind, and the emotions all need fuel to sustain the movement forward.

Surface your leverage points

Ask yourself, “What am I good at?” We all have an unlimited gift or two – those actions and skills that we are exceptional at and bring benefit to others. Let it shine. Use them EVERY day. Honor them as they are your brightest gem.

Talk it up

Be an observer of your language. Replacing self-defeating words with power language.

Carol Dweck in her book Mindset challenges us to add 1 words to every thought we have about learning, growing and change. Watch what happens when you include ‘ YET’ following a thought or concern. Think of a moment when you are fearful of the hard work…..You might be saying, “Ugh this is so much work! I cannot figure this out YET” The joint effort of expressing your thoughts, feelings and emotions with YET is a heart-centered choice and a brain filled willingness to stay the course.

Bernard Roth, a Stanford professor, offers us a similar challenge in his book, The Achievement Habit. Swap out the word BUT with AND. This tweak welcomes the challenge of “figuring out how to honor both aspects” AND is forward moving. For example, if I need to drive the kids to practice, finishing writing a blog and cook dinner. In this situation, we might hear ourselves say – I have to drive the kids to practice and cook dinner, but I have a blog to write. This choice creates inner turmoil and often finds us on the stuck in quicksand freeway, not moving forward. Instead Roth speaks to our thoughts and language sounding more like – “I have to drive the kids to practice, cook dinner AND finish writing my blog. “ This sends a message to our brain that we are willing to make it happen. It elevates our cognition to problem-solution and the very aspect we are wired for naturally.

“Everything is figureoutable.” - Marie Forleo

Roth also suggests swapping HAVE TO with WANT TO. This empowering switch offers us insight into the very nature of our heart-centered life – freewill. EVERY experience, decision, attitude, feeling, thought, emotion is a choice our heart is given to make. YES…even tin the midst of the situations that seem to happen to us, a freewill choice is ours to maneuver.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” -VIKTOR E. FRANKL

At the heart of it, change is a choice – the choice to plug in to your energy source daily, the choice to leverage your gifts and talents in any circumstance, the choice to talk clearer. Change is your choice to make EVERYday.

I DARE YOU – Pull forward! Choose change! You will never regret living boldly and living well…..it is really the only way to do so.

XOXO,

Kristi