PATTERNS

Patterns begin probably at the time of our conception. We learn sleep patterns, eating patterns, loving patterns and even fighting patterns. Most of our early patterns are well ingrained and stick with us throughout our life unless we make a conscious choice to change them.

Studies tell us that if we can stick with something 40 days it will become a pattern. What I have experienced is those new patterns that I decide to establish, things I feel that will surely benefit me, are  difficult to stick with for 40 days. I will confess I personally have worked on a number of these 40 day plans and even completed some of them. These were plans that I felt would really improve  my life. They did not stick unless I really was ready for change!

Now there are other patterns that have stuck; that it seems took less than 40 days to stick like glue! These, as you might guess, are the ones that did not serve me well.

I bring up this discussion about patterns because I have noticed recently in my life and in the lives of others there is a pattern that often creates discomfort, DIS-EASE, and much stress. It is that pattern that  when things are going well, our life is really feeling good, we suddenly find ourselves feeling agitated, irritated and wondering why???

I call this "waiting for the other shoe to drop”. Growing up in a dysfunctional, alcoholic home it was always a given that if we had a good Christmas morning, we were going to have a disastrous Christmas Eve. This definitely applied to any other holidays or special occasions.

When I married I was determined it would be a very different life but that did not happen; the pattern was so deeply embedded in my life I took it with me.

It was many, many, many years later that I realized how well ingrained this dysfunctional pattern was in my life. I did what we all do. I lived what I had learned and followed the pattern that my parents, and their parents, had laid out so many many years before.

Thank God! For awakening and for many great educational books and teachers and especially, Louise Hay, author of Love Yourself, Heal Yourself. I inhaled this book; read it and reread it. Studied and taught it. And finally! GOT IT.

In order to have a different life, a better life, I had to first believe that it was possible! Then the next step, even more difficult to believe, was that I deserve it and then that I could do something about it. I could change the pattern; I could change my life.

I quickly learned and am now a firm believer that the first step to making a change is to recognize what needs to be changed.

The second step is to become very clear about what kind of change I want to make.

I have found that change is a very scary word. CHANGE. It used to be when I heard or thought about CHANGE, my heart would pound, my gut would tighten and I would often put it off, whatever the change might be.

In 1984 as I was experiencing my awakening time. This is a poem that came through me,

FEAR it's not always here!
Sometimes I awaken in the morning
and it's gone.
Then some time midst  the day
it stealthily slips in!

Sometimes I catch it before it
settles in and I send it out.
Sometimes I welcome it with open arms
and revel in it – cuddle with it -
hold it closely to me.

It protects me – when it's here
I am paralyzed
being paralyzed is pain
but! Movement might be more painful

Stay here fear – I don't want to move.

So yes indeed, change does often bring fear. I found another great book titled Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. It's another one of those books I read and reread and still read.

I know there are patterns in your life that need to be changed. I encourage you to explore and find the many ways in which you can do it differently.

It is time for change in my life, in your life, in our world. Today is the day to begin.

YOU DESERVE A GREAT HAPPY HEALTHY LOVING LIFE!