So, it’s the New Year. You have things you want to change, new experiences you want to have, old experiences you want to let go of. They may be health-related, relationship changes, financial changes, career changes – any kind of change.
New Year’s Eve came. You felt excited, invigorated, full of potential; you smelled the scent of new in the air. Full of vigour, you marched forward into 2013. Expecting your wishes to be granted immediately, you felt that as soon as the clock chimed the 1st of January, the beginning of something amazing was going to happen.
AND THEN… all hell broke loose.
Were you wrong? Was change not in the air? Were you kidding yourself? Did thoughts plague your mind; “What is the point?! Look this is not going to work?” and you sighed and you looked at your life or how you felt, and you may have resigned yourself to a unquestioned thought, that it, whatever ‘it’ is, is not going to happen.
Okay.. so what happened?
Perhaps you wanted your relationship to improve with your partner, or you wanted a loving relationship. Instead you argued and fought and a battle had begun between you and another.
Perhaps you wanted to lose weight, and life surrounded you with blocks, emotional stress, financial stress, any kind of stress that encourages emotional overeating.
Perhaps you wanted a better job or an improvement in your working situation and you were demoted, made redundant, or your home environment changed so your costs were going up and this led to you not being able to resign from a position you dislike.
Perhaps you seek togetherness, love, romance and friendship, and people are pulling away from you, and you feel more isolated than ever?
The list goes on.
For me, my intention was to move into being a more empowered ‘INDEPENDENT’ woman. And to gradually release my dependency and attachment to Mike, who I have lived with for the past 9 years.
So, with the best will in the world I had a plan set out. I was going to learn to cook more; so I did not feel such a virgin in the kitchen; I was going to increase my positive thinking so I was able to let in more abundance and I was going to feel more physically fit.
My Back Gave Out
New Year’s Day, something happened that I did not expect. My back gave out. I had back spasms every few seconds on a walk, and I was hardly able to move or walk. Instead of becoming more independent, my dependency had increased.
I went into a low negative vibe for over a week and felt despairing. All my plans and intentions were on hold, I had not begun to edit my book as I felt too much discomfort at the computer and I simply felt shattered by circumstances.
And within that time it dawned on me.
With any major change from a pattern we have been doing for a long time, comes turmoil. The new seedling does not whoosh its way through the soil easily and ‘tada’, there it is in full bloom and looking pretty. No, it pushes its tender stems and branches through thick rich earth. When we grow new plants we do not kick at the soil telling the plant to hurry its ass up and bloom already, do we ? No, we expect it to grow in its own time.
Learning To Walk
We are like this plant and we are also like a small child learning to walk. We do not beat that child over the head when its first step brings it stumbling down. No, we encourage that child again and again, until it has gained confidence and is walking independently. We forget to give our own inner children this same support.
Whenever we are making a change that has had a lot of resistance for some time, and perhaps has some secondary benefits to keeping the old pattern, our inner children prefer the safety of the known, the comfortable, and so our inner children have hissy fits in the sand, kicking their heels up in anger and irritation. Our bodies respond to this (as in my back) and our outer environment as a reflection of what is going on inside may break down. Washing machines may break; the car may break down; anything can happen in the beginning stages of change. It is then that we need to become more tender as we would with small children, because we still are those small children.
I remember in the past when it came to financial change, some amazingly resistant things would take place. Mike and I were having problems with his car. It had big problems and needed £400 to fix it. Prior to this taking place my Mum had come into a little bit of money and was giving my sister and I some extra funds as a gift. I gratefully received it and then needed to use it to fix the car. This was because I did not feel I deserved to receive money, so no sooner had it come in than life was giving me a reason to let it go. This can happen with change and we just need to ride the storm until is passes and ask ourselves:
“Where am I resisting this change?”
“What are the secondary benefits to me keeping this old pattern?”
And from awareness, change can happen. We just need to keep moving forward, regardless of what the outer world is showing us. Our inner children like to feel safe and we need to reassure them that the new changes will be safe and more fun, but it’s like learning anything new; they need to take it one step at a time.
So if at this time all hell seems to be breaking loose in some area of your life or many areas, ask yourself if you had made an intention for change and what part of you is scared, and what can you do to reassure this part of you?
LATEST POSTS ON KELLY MARTIN SPEAKS
- The Shock Of The New
- Memorial Jewellery: Finding Comfort in Grief After Losing a Loved One
- How To Embrace Uncertainty
- Are You Lying To Yourself About Your Desires?
- Hate Anxiety? Love It Instead
Share this:
Kelly Martin, author of ‘When Everyone Shines But You’ is a dedicated writer and blogger who fearlessly explores life’s deepest questions. Faced with a decade of profound anxiety and grief following the loss of her father and her best friend Michael, Kelly embarked on a transformative journey guided by mindfulness, and she hasn’t looked back since. Through her insightful writing, engaging podcasts, and inspiring You Tube channel Kelly empowers others to unearth the hidden treasures within their pain, embracing the profound truth that they are ‘enough’ exactly as they are.
Really enjoyed reading this post, very true and timely message. The thought that has just come to me is that maybe it's time to believe that we deserve good things to happen to us. Cheers 🙂
Yes, we do, I would not say it is easy for all of us, but we truly do.
Reading about the Law of Opposites the other day was really helpful to me. When these things happen, it is a sign we are on the right path. Now that we're a bit further on into the year .. would be interesting to evaluate how the supposed 'negatives' have helped us.
Hmmm… that law sounds interesting Andy. Yes like my back issue led me into health.