Most of us on an awakening journey are confronted in one way or another at this time with the need to change our lives, and to become who we are meant to be. Our old ways are not working anymore, and many feel stuck in routine and old genetic patterns that keep us small and conformed to repeating what we already know. While we want a life filled with magic, miracles, and a deep connection with the Universe, we are so mired in controlling every aspect of our lives that we are blocking real change and a natural flow in our lives.
So how do we make profound changes in our lives? There is no way around loosening our tight grip of control on our environment, our perceptions, and our thoughts and actions. We cannot be free while we project our expectations and fears onto everything, and have to have everything just so. To let go of control, we first must have awareness of the purpose it served, and why we tried with all our might to keep everything static, and not allow change. For most of us this goes back to childhood survival, and to the ways we were raised with projections of fear, anger and control, where every change in our outer world just made things worse and traumatized us more. We learned to control ourselves, our behavior, emotions and thoughts, and to manipulate our perceptions such that we could survive. We dissociated parts of ourselves, and built walls behind which we were trying to protect ourselves and prevent breaking into pieces.
But we are adults now, and most of us have created a beautiful life for ourselves, and are safe now. We have completely outgrown the need to protect ourselves with such rigidity at the loss of being truly alive. Giving ourselves permission to heal our emotional traumas and work on letting down our walls, we must recover our suppressed emotions and inner child. Our survival mechanisms got us to where we are now, and helped us though some incredibly tough times, but we have no further need of them now. They have become empty shells and rituals of self-protection that now keep us from truly living. It’s like these parts of ourselves never got the message that the war is over, and are still ready and armed on their watch posts, while an abundant peaceful life is going on all around them.
In changing our lives, it all comes down to a change in perspective. Can we rise above our habits and rituals of thinking and being, for just a moment, so we can see from a different point of view? Can we let the past be over and gone, as it already is, and just be in the present moment without needing to change anything? Can we let go of our expectations, breathe deeply, and let go of the pressure we are putting on ourselves to be a certain way? Can we allow life to come to us, rather than forcing everything to fit into our tiny box of how we would prefer things to be?
Allowing change, and surrendering our old ways of thinking and being takes time. For most of us this is a process, not an event. With compassion and love, we must do the inner work to advance our ability to let go of control and surrender our lives to God. We must learn to trust ourselves and the Universe again. And we must allow our own divine Spirit to become our guide, rather than being almost mechanically moved about by our survival mechanisms, patterns and habits in predictable ways.
Awareness is key to self-mastery. An increasing awareness of ourselves in all areas of our lives brings us the gift of choice. When we get to know ourselves at the deepest levels and have understanding, we can step out of our self-centered ways of looking at everything, and change our perspective. But we must find our will in order to make changes, for otherwise we are stuck in good intentions, resolutions and lovely affirmations with no follow-through. We can choose not to do what we have always done, assert our will to change, and allow the new to emerge. We now have the chance to experiment with implementing new, healthy and self-loving ways of living that are in accordance with our divine Spirit and our mission on Earth at this time. Making changes takes continuous effort, and is not easy, and can sometimes feel like an uphill battle, but it is incredibly important if we want to truly live, and not just keep existing in survival mode.
As we go through this transition, we may feel lost, uncomfortably vulnerable and very raw. These are positive signs that we are changing. We cannot grow within our comfort-zone, and we cannot bring it with us into our new world. But everything we have been yearning for, and that is truly worth living for, can only be found when we allow the changes that the Universe has in store for us.
Neha