Why Does Change Hurt?

Posted on November 17, 2008 by Dan

shead_olympus_pristina1The subject of change seems to be all around us. It’s become a rallying point for winning political campaigns where much is said about the need for it, if not the way to go about it. Recent political events aside, lots of personal changes have been sweeping across my landscape lately. I’ve felt a bit like Dorothy when she commented to Toto after only a short time in Oz, that “My, people come and go so quickly here!” There’ve been changes in nearly every major venue of my life: health, love and relationships, work, living conditions . . .

It hasn’t been easy. In fact, some of it has been damned hard. Sometimes it’s thrown me completely off kilter and off any sense of rhythm or rhyme. Sometimes it’s been scary or very, very sad. Some of it, of course, has been delightful-a welcome shift in the lighting of my life or a pleasantly surprising new development.

But enough of it has been painful for me to wonder why difficulty and stress is so often the nature of the changes we see. I wondered to The Shower Team, “Why does change hurt?”

This question is coming from a place of misperception on your part. The truth is that you are all changing all the time-every moment of every day. Even your scientists have established that the very cells of your being are dying and being born on a continual basis below your level of awareness. Your environment, your world, your external as well as your internal conditions are in constant flux, but you are for the most part, feeling no pain as a result of this.

The pain that you associate with change is entirely a result of your focus-your choice to look primarily at what is leaving or disappearing or dying and as you look at that, to mourn its departure and its loss, rather than to give your attention to the gain you are experiencing, to the expansion that is always the result of the change taking place. You choose to look back and to see yourselves as losing something rather than to look from the perspective of your powerful now and to see the potential benefit of what is coming.

In this as in every dilemma of your lives, it is your perception-the point of view that you are choosing-that is your source of feeling either powerless or powerful. Your focus is what determines whether you mourn or whether you move forward with eagerness and joy.

You have done a bangup job of convincing yourselves that you ‘need’ your grieving processes, that it is unhealthy for you to let go of anything that has mattered to you without trudging through various stages of unhappiness before allowing yourselves to embrace the new with true anticipation. You have talked yourselves into believing that you must have a funeral in order to celebrate a life that is no longer being physically expressed.

We do not tell you it is wrong to take this or any other approach. We never say you should not feel this or that or that you are messing up by choosing a focus that feels bad to you. In this as in all manner of life experience, you are free to choose. You are free to spin your theories and to hypothesize your processes in whatever way you see fit. You are free to give full rein to the sorrows that follow whatever you are observing. You are free to spend as much time as you like reminiscing and regretting and to justify those choices in whatever ways you want. And in fact, it is the contrast of those resulting times of sadness and sorrow that often assist you in clarifying the happiness that your heart truly desires.

None of that changes the fact that sooner or later you must turn your attention elsewhere. Eventually you must begin to look forward if you are to move forward, you must see the value of what is coming and judge it as worth giving your focus to, rather than continuing to fix your gaze in the rear view mirror.

It is when you turn your eyes back to the road ahead and allow yourselves to see the wonders of the journey before you that the change stops hurting-and starts to feel like the wondrous adventure that you always know is the truth of your lives-the very reason you chose to come forth and to have this physical experience to begin with.

Change hurts-and will hurt-for as long as you decide that it needs to, not one second longer. You have every hue of an unlimited palette of colors with which to paint your perspective on anything that comes to you. You can color your world blue for as long as you like . . . until you reach the inevitable realization that a spectacular rainbow awaits your inspired and ingenious hand.

I just moved into a new apartment. It’s somewhat embarrassing to admit that it’s the first home of my own-not shared with anyone else-in my adult life. Some of the reasons for the move have been painful or difficult ones . . . but the actual experience of selecting and moving into and creating my own space with my own stuff has mostly made me positively giddy. It’s brought a bubbly, creative energy to my experience that I never expected and has just been such sheer fun, for the most part, that whenever I think about it-as opposed to the reasons that got me here-I can’t help smiling.

Maybe it’s one of the reasons I’ve been avoiding blues as I’ve gone about decorating my new space. I’ve chosen rich reds and bright greens and golden yellows-not because I dislike blue (like so many, it’s one of my favorite colors) but because I’ve felt like it was time to explore more of the other colors available to me.

I still get a little blue sometimes-even when sitting on my gorgeous new red loveseat. But I am realizing, as the Team has said, that life really is a rainbow. And I can choose another color as easily as I pick out a different can of paint.

Filed under: Creating Your Own Reality, Deliberate Creating, Empowerment, Law of Attraction, Self Development, Spirituality, Well being | 1 Comment »

Deadly Comparisons

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Dan

As I notice more and more occasions these days where I am one of the older people in any given room, and as I observe that folks classified as “overnight successes” are getting younger and younger, it seems a fitting time to consider the subject of comparisons.  They’re my thorn in the flesh . . .  the proverbial albatross around my neck . . .  the cross I seem to be continually bearing . . .  you get the idea.

Somewhere along the way I developed this pesky habit of noticing how other people are doing, particularly in the arenas that interest me and then giving myself a hard time for not doing as well or better.  It’s petty.  It’s superficial.  It’s totally unproductive.  It’s me.

But the question is, why do I continue to do something I know is counterproductive?  Comparing myself to others is nearly always a lose/lose proposition. So I asked The Shower Team, why do I keep choosing to play a game I can’t win?

If you could somehow compile statistics for such a relatively unquantifiable thing as death of dreams, we assure you that you would find comparisons to be a leading cause.  It’s the wolf in sheep’s clothing that scatters your herd of dreams and desires, leaving them lost and vulnerable to all manner of attack.

 

We watch you—every one of you—launching your brilliant desires from the place of pure genius creation that is your natural state, and we see the childlike wonder and joyful anticipation in your eyes as you contemplate how far into space those rockets will travel before coming back to you in a wondrous explosion of fulfillment and satisfaction . . .  You stand there oh so briefly and beautifully focused on YOUR rocket and its perfect trajectory . . .  and before it’s even out of sight, you allow your eyes to wander to the ones next to you, also launching their rockets . . .  and you see them sneaking glances over at you and pretty soon you’re all busy checking each other out and noticing how far his rocket has gone or her rocket has gone and, hm . . .  their rocket seems to be moving a lot faster and going in a completely different direction and, I wonder, shouldn’t my rocket be moving at that same speed or heading in that direction?  What’s wrong with my rocket?  I must have misfired somehow.  There must be some malfunction or I must have not have as much knowledge or experience as that launcher over there . . .  how will my rocket ever catch up to theirs and if it doesn’t, what good will it do me to have launched the thing in the first place . . .   I must be one lousy rocketeer with no idea what I’m doing.  Who do I think I am, standing here in the midst of all these master rocketeers, launching my puny, piddling little rocket. . . .  

 

Perhaps we’ve beat the metaphor somewhat to death, but you see our point.  The minute you shift your focus from YOUR desires and your alignment with them, is the moment those desires begin to lose their momentum . . .  you become divided in your attention and in the energy that you are flowing to and through your desires, you become conflicted in the vibration that you are offering—one minute aspiring to reach the heavens and the next, crashing down to earth by your choice to evaluate yourself by someone else’s criteria.

 

It’s no wonder you struggle with this.  The comparisons start practically before you’ve got a tooth to chew with. You’re evaluated in terms of how ‘normally’ you reach and move beyond the accepted standards.  Are you learning to poop neatly and routinely in the pot?  Are you moving from babble to discernible syllables on time?  Are you pulling yourself up and putting one tiny foot in front of the other on schedule?  Heaven forbid you get a little behind in any of that—your anxious parents will have you sitting with an ‘early development specialist’ faster than they can change your diaper.

 

It only gets worse as time goes on.  You get the message from nearly every front that you’re only as attractive or intelligent or talented or successful as whatever norm has been established by the vocally insecure masses.  You find yourselves understandably torn between what truly calls to you and what the legion of others insist should be your ambition and your timeline.

 

It can’t be done—this mixed, conflicted approach to having what you want.  You cannot stand in your perfectly creative now, allowing the creative energy stirred by your desires to flow, and at the same time turn your attention to what anyone else is doing and judge yourself lacking—and expect any pure response to what you’re asking for.

 

We continually encourage you to ignore those around you, at least in terms of paying any real attention to what they’re doing or how it’s going for them . . .  We continually encourage you to see and believe that you have nothing to do with them and they have nothing to do with you.  They cannot influence your progress—or your lack of it—in any way that you do not allow.  Not one of them can bring your rocket back to earth or cause it to veer off course.  You and only you man those controls.

 

So what sort of captain of your own ship do you prefer to be?  One who relishes his or her command and goes with what you know is in your heart—or one who looks at and listens to every naysayer, every voice of caution or disapproval, every well-intentioned but ultimately deadly bit of advice?

 

Make the words, “That has nothing to do with me” one of your mantras.  When your attention is drawn to another’s progress or achievement or manifestation . . .  even if they are experiencing something that you also want but have not yet received . . .  remember that they can’t get their hands on anything of yours . . .  that what you’ve asked for is still waiting for you and that the more you focus on your movement toward it rather than their seemingly quicker progress . . . the sooner your desires will explode into the galaxy of perfect fulfillment that is yours and yours alone.

For some reason Captain Picard’s words “Make it so” keep ringing in my ears.  Oh for that single point of focus, never wavering from my own distilled desires.  Sometimes life on an island sounds pretty good.

But since I inhabit a fairly crowded planet, where it’s hard not to notice the guy or gal next to me . . .  I guess I’ll just have to keep trying to remind myself that even though we share the same sod, we all have our own piece of the sky pie.  Maybe it won’t ever be an easy thing for most of us to do.  Maybe “easy” is overrated.  But that’s another blog.

Filed under: Self Development | 1 Comment »

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