change

Change.

Here's something we people do all the time...we change stuff.
Our clothes, tv channels, job/schools, where we eat out, holiday destinations, who we hang with, our lovers, brand of washing powder, hairstyle, lanes, etc, etc.
It is quite apparent that change is a part of everyday life, so much so that it's easy to take change for granted.
Not much, if any thought is given to the process or mechanisms of change while in the act of changing.

Hey, why would I need to contemplate change, I can change, I know how to do it, it's a piece of cake.

Ah, but what about when you find yourself in a situation that requires you to change but you find you are unable to?
You want to change because this thing you are about to do or continuously do, is unproductive and harmful to you and others.
You try to change but you can't, even though you really want to.
Lose weight, stop smoking, drinking, drugs, violent rages, self harm(physicial and psychological), eating quiches...

You have a list in your head of what you would like to become, things you want to do to improve your quality of life but find you can't change.
Or you change for a while but snap back into old patterns.
Why is this so, I can change lots of things, I know how to change, why can I not change this specific thing?

I was walking on the railway line a fortnight ago.
If I may share my progress report with you...

3 years ago, after hospital tiem, I could only manage a gentle 20 minute walk every second day.
Since being here in Tazzie, I have been doing daily 1 hr walks on the tracks.
I walk 30 mins to a small lake with tiny stream(right next to the tracks). My new Zen garden.
I had a garden while living with my bro and sis in law after hospital.
On that walking track, I found a place strewn with rocks and boulders and I would construct pillars of all shapes and sizes.
At my new Zen garden here, I keep the stream clear of leaves and twigs and I hang with the trees and insects.

Anyways...

I plan to walk the railway track to Scottsdale. It's a 15min drive there from home, so I figure a 4-4.5 hr walk on the tracks to get there.
Since May I have been walking farther and farther each day on the tracks, an extra 10-15 minutes each day.
The longest I've gone is 2.5 hrs one way( 5 hr return walk).
I looked toward Scottsdale from that farthest position and calculated it will take 3.5-4 hrs to walk there.

That 2.5hr distance, I walked over a month ago. I've only done it once as I have limited myself to doing 2-3 hr return walks each day.
I did this same 2.5 hr(one way) walk early last week...it only took me 1.5hrs.
I have increased in strength in a short amount of time.
Scottsdale is now only 2.5-3 hrs away.
It feels good to grow. It's a slow process but growth is happening.
Though I had overdone it with my log splitting.
I'm limping a bit, but this gives me some much needed quality time to reply to some people.

Anyways...

I was walking on the tracks the other week and I was observing my walking.
Sensing, feeling, observing and pondering the feedback information of the rhythm of my steps,
the look and sound of the unstable gravel, the colors and decay of the wooden sleepers, the uniformity of the steel ones,
the leaves and twigs randomly strewn between the two tracks, rusty disused spikes,
tiny plants, animal droppings, morning dew, tiny wisps of fog.

The context I was walking in is so full of wonderous things to observe, but my main focus was the actual motion of walking I was doing.
You have to be more attentive walking on railway tracks than you do on smooth sufaces.

Ah, I noticed...Change, in an extremly 'taken for granted' and simple form.
Change is to go from one state to another. One position to another.
To walk is to put one foot in a new position, then the other foot. Progress is achieved. Change is made.

Looking at it a little closer.
One foot leaves one stable/secure position(the ground), goes through an insecure period(through the air), then arrives in the new postion, once again, stable and secure(back on the ground again)
(To accomplished walkers, the period where the foot is going through the air between ground position A and B
doesn't seem or feel too insecure.
But to a baby taking it's first steps it is.)

So, the process of change is:
Leaving one position, going through no position, arrivng at a new position.
The 'no position' state is labeled as such only in comparison to the two other positions.
Going from A to B, there in no position between A and B, it's a transition state.
Or looked at this way:
Leaving one secure state, traversing an insecure state, arriving at another secure state.

Walking: an easy form of change. All done by choosing to.
You choose to go somewhere, and you choose to put one foot in front of the other.
Personal change is also derived by choice.

But then you begin to learn the trapeze:
The first swing is the secure position.
It is known. You've been on swings before. It is secure. You simply hang on, no biggie.
Swing your brains out, no problem, simply hang on. Piece of cake.
Now the teacher instructs you to let go of the swing, fly through the air turning and grasp the other swing.
But each time you swing close to the other swing, you do not do the change over.

What is the problem, why are you having trouble choosing to change?
: Leaving the security of the first swing is scary.
: The thought of flying through the air in the transition phase is scary.
: The second swing has unknown elements, you have no experience of grabbing it from an insecure and moving position(mid air).

Change now becomes difficult to do because of unknowns of self and the situation due to inexperience and the uncertainties of the outcome.
Add to that you may feel or think negatively toward yourself if you make a mistake
or if you find you can't do it or you convince yourself you can't do it.

To accomplish health, enlightenment, ascension, expansion, self improvement(via applying positives or removing negatives), all require change.
If you are struggling with any of these or others forms of change, look at each phase of the change process to see where you are struggling.
Maybe you are having trouble letting go of something, or the insecure transition phase scares you, or you can't decide which next step to take because it's in unfamiliar/unknown territory.
It could be one or even all three.

You cannot make progress to the new even if part of you is still holding onto the old.
If you find while implimenting change that you aren't making progress, you are still stuck in the old ways,
look to see if you are blocking yourself by holding onto an established opposing belief,
or even though you may not be fearful of doing something new, you may be fearful of letting go of what you know now.

Change is more than just doing or acquiring something new. It involves letting go of the old and of going through an insecure transition phase.
A lot of this self blocking is unknown unless you stop and have a look inside.

You sincerely and passionately wanna quit smoking because you now realise how much damage it's doing to you, but maybe another part still enjoys the taste,
and/or another part has trouble seeing you socialising without a smoke in your hand, or it feels uncomfortable.
A coffee or beer without a smoke. That's just not normal, you tell yourself.

A lot of this self blocking is not you choosing to be at war with yourself.
It's simply not realising to discard that which no longer serves you when integrating the new,
or is opposing the new way.
The old belief is not consciously trying to create conflict, or keep you in old habits, or fight for it's life.
You've just put another engine at the other end of the train. Logically, they will oppose each other.
Remove the old engine and the new engine will drive you toward your new goal.

:In order to heal myself of depression, I had to discard the belief it was incurable. - letting go of the old.
:When I deconverted from 20 years of christianity, I went through 2 weeks of wondering if I was now doomed to hell - scary transition phase.
:In order to love, I had to remove beliefs which caused me to be offended.

Sometimes it's not a matter of not having enough will power or determination or faith, or your chakras are misaligned or
you haven't ascended enough or whatever.
Sometimes it could be a simple thing of having an opposing belief stopping you from achieving the change you desire and are working hard at.

In the new Star Trek movie.
The whole fleet has just warped big time to Vulcan.
It's Sulu's first time in the driver's seat of the Enterprise, which has just come off the production line.
Captain Pike orders, "Punch it."
Sulu hits the warp lever and...the motors whirr down to an embarrasing halt.
Was it some serious malfunction of this untested ship?
Nope. Sulu left the handbrake on.

The reason I've shared all this...
I've been practicing something on and off for several years...no joy of success.
A couple of months ago, I saw the blocking belief...within seconds of removing that belief...much joy flowed.
Imagine having infinite power and you can't engage it because you got a tiny little mental handbrake on.
Once I saw what was going on I had a jolly good laugh. "DOY, of course, ha, how silly of me to not think of this all this time, it's soo obvious."

Change is scary sometimes. Usually when you change to something new and/or letting go of the familiar.
You have never experienced it before, you have never used the abilities you have for this situation.
It's unchartered territory. Not only is the experience unknown, but so too is the unknown parts of self.

Even if the change you want to impliment will make your life better, the change can still be scary.
Watch a baby taking it's first steps, the "fear" when it first tries. But look at the joy upon completion.
How scary would it be to take that first leap from one swing to the other on the trapeze.
But how awesome you feel after you complete it.
That's a courage and confidence thing.
But it's also wise to check which phases of change you have fear of.
This will increase your self knowledge and perhaps aid you in other changes you are struggling with.

Not all change is scary. So in those ones that you are struggling with, look inside if there be any self blocking going on.
And it's beneficial to break a problem down into its specific elements, in order to pinpoint what the actual problem is.

You can go from, "Oh this is hopeless, I just can't do it, I've tried so many ways", to
"Oh, it's only one small spanner jammed in the cogs..oh I can sort that out quick smart."

Or, you could have my kind of experience and realise you left the mental handbreak on.
Self awareness, self exploration, self understanding as far as I am concerned, is one of the main tool for sorting out problems,
no matter how impossible they may seem.

[Silver]

In the new Star Trek movie.
The whole fleet has just warped big time to Vulcan.
It's Sulu's first time in the driver's seat of the Enterprise, which has just come off the production line.
Captain Pike orders, "Punch it."
Sulu hits the warp lever and...the motors whirr down to an embarrasing halt.
Was it some serious malfunction of this untested ship?
Nope. Sulu left the handbrake on.

The reason I've shared all this...
I've been practicing something on and off for several years...no joy of success.
A couple of months ago, I saw the blocking belief...within seconds of removing that belief...much joy flowed.
Imagine having infinite power and you can't engage it because you got a tiny little mental handbrake on.
Once I saw what was going on I had a jolly good laugh. "DOY, of course, ha, how silly of me to not think of this all this time, it's soo obvious."

I had typed a response all up several moments ago and through some sort of slipup, it was gone, argh~ I just told myself it was probably for the best, but I wanted to say I liked it, and wanted to ask can you put whatever that "blocking belief" was into words that might help me understand better?

Originally Posted by Silvergirl

I had typed a response all up several moments ago and through some sort of slipup, it was gone, argh~ I just told myself it was probably for the best, but I wanted to say I liked it, and wanted to ask can you put whatever that "blocking belief" was into words that might help me understand better?

A blocking belief is whatever belief you have that opposes the new belief you are trying to establish,
or the new piece of info you are incorporating into your perception,
or the practice you are trying to establish in your life.
EG: A blocking belief for curing depression is, " I believe depression is incurable."

It's not about what was my blocking belief, but do you have them in your life that could be the cause of struggling or being unable to impliment change.

Also Silvergirl, I was going to say this yesterday but decided not to.
But today is a new day so...
That information of what my blocking belief was, I will joyfully speak more of this in detail when I have completed certain tasks involving this experience.
Just not at the moment.

[Silver]

Oh, ok. Thanks...something to look forward to.

~smiles~ Update. Don't hold your breath Silvergirl.
According to the data from the last couple of days I have not achieved 100% success.
I actually cannot put a number to it as yet as the data I have received simply causes my head to hurt.
It's hard to tell, by the data so far, whether I have succeeded, partially succeeded or totally failed.
No...I withdraw that last one, the data does show something valid has happened,
The new data has me re evaluating the whole thing.
Just not what I expected.
Suffice to say, the joy is still there, I just haven't been 100% successful thus far...according to the confusing data.

But I continue to research to unravel the confusion. It's all jolly good fun tiems.
Lesson learnt: My excitement overrode my ususal code of conduct that I don't speak till I am 100% sure.

~smiles~ latest update.
I have to observe myself for a minimum of 12 months to determine if I have succeeded or not.

From a lengthy and informative discussion with my doctor this morning,
a bloodtest cannot confirm the healing.
Though the doctor was wided eyed as I shared my experience...he thinks a healing has taken place.

I was convinced, from 2 months of observations, I have healed myself,
but upon learning the new information from the doctor, all I may have done is contain the illness.
Either way, something tangible had occured the dayI removed the blocking belief.
~smiles~ grr, just have to wait 12 months to confirm it.
Oh well, I tested my healing of depression for 12 months before I was convinced I was cured of that, so I like the symmetry.