Often clients begin working with me because he/she/they have an area or two of life that they want to improve or alter, and in my delicious world, those areas are always pertaining to the realm of sex, love and relationships! Although this may be “spicier” than many other areas to focus and work on… the process of change is the same! So I figured I would write a little about the art and science of change.
I get asked a lot by my clients, “How do I change?” And usually I reply with something along the lines of, “you simply asking the question is the first and most powerful step because it indicates an AWARENESS that something needs to change to move you towards your best and truest life.” This all important question of “how do I change?” also hints at another important aspect of change which is DESIRE TO CHANGE.
IMAGINATION AND CURIOSITY are other elements that are crucial to change and sustaining transformation. Can you envision what your life would look like and be like once you have made this change? Can you imagine steps needed to get you to or towards this place? Can you invite in a curiosity about why you want to make this change? What keeps you from this change? Caveat….. imagination and curiosity are very different and have different energies and different impacts in the brain than their more insidious counterparts that are all too common in our current culture – judgement and shame. Can you replace judgement and shame with imagination and curiosity as part of your practice of change? I bet you can……
Another important point in making change is that change requires time and energy. Science supports the fact that attention goes to where energy flows. So by simply putting our energy in to change, our attention goes there and we are more likely to take action steps to enact this change. In our often overly busy lives, it might feel that we don’t have enough energy to go around. But often if we put our energy in places that serve our best self, we discover more energy and resilience than we even knew we had. In addition, we make time for what we value. So my question for you is how much do you value this journey of change? How rich and vibrant will your life be when you enact this change? To me, that seems FULLY worth the time and energy.
Also, I always share with my clients that change is beautiful but the human brain is not naturally comfortable with change. Although we as humans are incredibly resilient and adaptable, we also love homeostasis on a collective and cellular level. So anything that moves us out of that state can feel hard or uncomfortable even if the familiar state is undesirable… it is still familiar. But alas, we grow at our edges of comfort and not settled in the middle of our comfort zone. This does not mean that pain has to be our teacher (although she is a powerful one) but it does mean that to change we need to get more practiced at being lovingly and consciously at our edges, resourcing ourselves, and cheerleading the heck out of ourselves when we do make steps towards change.
If you are reading this, you are at least curious about change. And I would even gander that since you are on my website at all, you are more than a little interested in blossoming sex/love/relationships in your life. What I will close by saying is…. Welcome to this sweet sexy club!! This is in fact a tribe of big-hearted open-minded people wanting to look within, find the answers within, and change from within.
And a few of my favorite quotes on personal growth to leave you with:
“Don’t go through life, grow through life” – E. Butterworth
“We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are” – O. Winfrey
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” -Anais Nin
Deep love and honoring,
