HOW TO THRIVE IN TIMES OF CHANGE

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have recently made a lot of big changes in my life. These have primarily been outer changes including moving to a new city, changing homes, and starting a new job. While all these outer changes have been exciting and wonderful, it has been the inner changes that have unfolded through this period of upheaval that have been the most fulfilling and have caused the most growth.

The challenges of change
One of the biggest challenges that I encountered through this process was learning how to remain calm and to feel content with my life while I was in the transition phase. The hardest part was learning to keep control over my mind, my thoughts and my emotions regardless of what was going on around me.

When you are wanting to bring something new in to your life you have to keep your mind focused on where you are going and refuse to get caught up in the distractions of the outer world. This can be tough, and it requires discipline, commitment and a strong, clear mind.

In order to create any type of change, you first need to create space. And in order to create space you are going to have to let go of things. Once you have released what is no longer needed, you have the platform to bring in the new. You can start to build new structures and attract new opportunities in to your life. The problem that arises is that there is often a transition period because things take time, and it can require a bit of work to remain positive and calm when it seems like the world around you has fallen apart. Often you are in a strange middle ground where you have let go of old things, yet the new forms and structures are not yet in place yet. This can be scary and it is important to not let your mind get carried away with fearful thinking or to try to run back to the comfort of the old.

Unfortunately, I did find myself on a little bit of a downward and fearful spiral when I initially made these changes. I felt stressed and anxious. I was upset because things were not happening as quickly as I wanted. I felt the desire to try and control or force things to move faster and to go my way, even though they were actually just unfolding the perfect way that they needed to.

I looked at what I had initially created, and I didn't like it. I felt like I had lost everything and gained nothing. I found that my mind was becoming dominated by what was not working and what was not good enough, rather than on all the wonderful things that were happening. I felt overwhelmed with negative emotions, lethargy, un-inspiration, and discontent.

Tame your wild mind
Thank goodness I finally found a way to pull back the reigns on my wild mind and I began to take control of what I was thinking. It was only once I decided to choose how I was going to respond to these  circumstances, and I took back my power, that things started to change and improve. It is funny how things outside of you do not actually need to change for you to feel better. All that is required is a shift in your perception.

This experience inspired me to share a little reminder about how we often let our mind get carried away with outer drama and problems. We need to come back to the truth, which is that the only thing that is important is the way that you think.

Change how you are thinking
Stop taking action and instead work with your mind.When things are in upheaval, or life is not going according to your plan, or no matter how much you try you cannot seem to control these terrible outside circumstances that keep manifesting in your life, I encourage you to stop. Just stop. Stop trying to change things or do things different or take different action, and instead begin to work with your mind.

Ask yourself some questions. How are you interpreting this event in a way that is making it worse? How can you find peace with what you have and where you are now, while you wait for everything to fall in to place? How are your fearful thoughts and your need to make something outside of you wrong adding to the problem? Can you find way to shift your thinking so that you can actually find some lessons or blessings in this experience and actually begin to feel grateful for all that is happening?

Stop being a victim to circumstance 
Do you ever find yourself blaming things outside of you for why you feel bad? Whenever you let yourself be emotionally controlled by life's events and circumstances, you are living as a victim. It is time to give up this disempowering behaviour and start to remember that you have the ability to choose how you feel about anything and everything that happens to you.

I want to encourage you to start to become aware of the tendency of the mind to blame circumstances outside of us for our unhappiness. The Ego mind of the human loves to make people and things wrong as it means it never has to look inside itself to notice it's own flaws.

Perhaps you may need to embark on a spring clean of your consciousness. You have to remember that it is much easier to blame something outside of you for your unhappiness, because then you never really need to look inside yourself for to explain it. It takes work to take responsibility for your life, but it is absolutely necessary if you want long lasting happiness and fulfillment in life.

Choose to respond positively
Begin to take charge of what is going through your mind.You have to remember that, the quality of your thoughts create the quality of your life.

Realise that everything has both good and bad aspects. There is right and wrong in everything. It is up to you which part you choose to give your attention too - the positive or the negative. You have both nice and mean, generous and stingy, introverted and extroverted, rich and poor in you. But it depends where you focus and what you choose to think about yourself that determines who you are. Why not focus on all the good things about you, or all the good things about your current circumstances, rather than the bad.

Do you know that you can just as easily choose a positive thought as a negative one? Do you know that you can just as easily respond to an event in a positive way as a negative way? You life becomes whatever aspect you focus on the most but all possibilities exist at all times.

Shift your perceptions
Simply shifting your perspective on something can create a miracle in your life. But, you have to be willing to make this shift and to do the work on your mind. The above lessons are not just relevant to times of change, but to any time in your life where you are letting outside circumstances bring you down.

Take back your power. Change the way you are seeing something and begin to feel differently about it. it will then only be a matter of time until the outer world shifts to match your inner state and you will be living a much more joyful and peaceful life.