Light Mail

Mid-week Inspiration January 3, 2007

The hardest thing in the world to do is change.
Not your hair style. Not the wardrobe, the job, the car or the route you take to work.
All of those things are small; they are relatively easy to change and they make relatively small differences in the overall picture.
The really hard changes are your beliefs.
It is a well known fact in our democratic system that the average voter will vote the same way all his or her life. Conservatives will remain conservative and likely their children will be conservatives, Liberals will be Liberals all their lives. People do not easily change their beliefs even when those beliefs are apparently self defeating. Alcoholics will drink themselves to death when lacking serious support for changing beliefs, core beliefs.
And, like them, you and I have likely got dysfunctional beliefs. Beliefs that will often hurry us along to our graves.
We can’t see them for they are the patterns of our seeing.
To change them we first must accept that we have them.
On faith.
Without any indication of what they are or even any proof of their existence.
So how do we do that? The answer is far simpler than the action necessary.
First, before we go any further, we must accept that we are the cause of our lives. Even today with all the scientific proof supporting this simple reality, most people will deny such personal power.
Assuming that any of us are truly ready, willing and capable of embracing such a notion all we need do is pay attention to what isn’t working in our lives and feelings.
Then the hard part comes; we must take ownership.
“I am the creator of even this.”
Our thoughts words and actions inevitably lead us to every event in our lives.
This is the only way that God reaches out to us. We are beings of complete free will and it is on the level of our thinking and feeling that we exercise this unlimited freedom.
Sounds simple enough, just change your thoughts and your life will change.
Don’t hold your breath; the change is likely going to take time. Yes your changed thoughts will bring about change but what you truly believe will hold you thoroughly anchored to your experience. So it’s going to take a little more than just a changed thought; it will also take consistency, determination and whole lot of convincing.
So really in order to make that change you really want you will likely need to have to change your whole life. This includes changing the people you associate with and changing your leisure habits.
You may have to change your clothes, your hairstyle, your work, your worship and every other detail of your life. Usually true change, where actual life is threatened, will demand a complete change and a whole lot of forgiveness of self and others. It will take more surrender than we may have thought possible.
Yes, it is so much easier, so much more comfortable, to stay stuck in our old worn out beliefs, why ever would anyone want to change if it takes that much work.
You will likely change your life only when you have run out of all other options. And in making that change you may have to run out of those options several times, because, acting unconsciously we will always take the easy way.
So when you set your course for the New Year ask yourself;
“How much am I willing to let go of to make this change?” and, “How much time am I willing to give to making a complete and permanent change.”
I wish you all success in your New Years directions.

Blessings,

Rev. Dale

Light Mail is put out by Rev. Dale Jukes of the Okanagan Centre For Positive Living.