I Want to Change...but Why is Change So Hard?

Links to all things One Degree to Victory:
➡️:       Facebook

🌐:      One Degree To Victory


I pray that you leave this conversation with greater clarity about where you are, deeper awareness of what may be shaping your path, and the courage to believe that change is still possible. May you recognize the patterns that have held you, discover the capacity already within you and take the next step toward the life you are still becoming. 

Until next time, Constant Listener, I love ya'll. 💙
 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Change begins when we stop living in a constant posture of protection and begin developing the capacity to live open to possibility. Now let me explain. I was crashing out, or about to crash out, to turn the phrase my teenage children use so well in my household. I could feel that emotional overload and eventual spillage was imminent. Somewhere in the middle of all that emotion, actually, it was right before the spillage, I told myself what so many of us have heard. Girl, get a grip. My impending emotional outburst was not what surprised me. I am, by nature, a very passionate person. I always have been. And my biggest challenge and change is managing the emotional outbursts common to being a passionate person. What surprised me was the image of myself I saw in my mind's eye after I told myself to get a grip. What I pictured was not the epitome of a calm, cool, and collected person who had somehow managed to pull herself together. It was the opposite. I saw clenched fists, raised shoulders, a tightened jaw, beady eyes, and shallow breathing. Everything was tight. Everything was braced. And then in the very next moment, I saw my sister girls, the women who wanted change, who needed change, and who were working toward change. I saw those marvelous ladies from my time working in the hotel. I saw my colleagues holding everything together at the desk and at home. I saw my neighbors wanting and needing change so desperately, but constricted by old habits and familiar ways of being. And I thought we are all in or have been in these seasons of change. Seasons when we want something different. Seasons when we are working towards something different. Seasons when opportunity may even be present. And yet somehow we remain pulled inward, gripping, holding on to what is familiar while reaching for what is possible. Constant listener, sister girl, if we keep gripping, holding on to the familiar, we run the risk that we will eventually stop asking, stop expecting, and we will stop imagining that our lives could be different than before. I don't want to live like that. I don't want to live closed-fisted. I don't want to live close to possibilities. And I don't want to live close to my future. I want to move forward with integrity. I want the different parts of my life to begin working together instead of constantly fighting one another. I want this change to be intentional and above all else, meaningful. And I don't want to have to fight for every inch of it. Constant listener, what if a person wants change, understands the need for change, and may even act and may even have access to opportunity, but lacks the internal and environmental capacity to remain open to what change requires? What if some of us have spent so much of our lives protecting ourselves from what might happen next that we have not yet learned how to remain open to what could happen next? That is where we are going this season. We are going to begin by understanding what we are gripping and what is gripping us, the patterns we repeat, the responses that have become automatic, the worry, anxiety, stress, procrastination, and stagnation that can shape our choices and narrow our sense of possibility. We're also going to explore capacity because as a lifelong learner, educator, and advocate, I believe people can grow. I believe patterns can be recognized. I believe responses can change. And I believe that sometimes the way forward begins not with fighting harder, holding tighter, or forcing ourselves to become somebody new. I believe that sometimes the way forward begins with developing the capacity to open toward what comes next. Welcome, constantly somebody.