Chemistry of Change part four

How do we perceive the connection between stress and change? Change is by nature stressful because it is dismantling, reshaping, and moving energetic patterns into new configurations. That means that some perceptions that we use often are now placed into a minor role. New perceptions that are unfamiliar are now expected to perform a new role flawlessly, without practice, and that is stressful to new perceptions!

Some people want to be completely certain how they will react to stress before they subject themselves to situations that might be stressful. They want to have assurance that they can endure the feeling of living with the new them, without resorting to old habits and reactivating poor strategies. For example, our dear old cranky cousin Joe had decided to become more loving and more spiritual. However, when Joe encountered “guff” from his family and friends he could not help himself and pushed his new loving method on them in an aggressive way to show them just how spiritual he has become. If they should continue to not appreciate his new attitudes, he just might not show them his spiritual side again.

On the other hand, some people love stress. Like a mountain climber who feels the tingle of excitement while planning the best route to the summit, he or she has transmuted potential stress into a proactive curiosity and challenge that is not stressful at all, but fun! Seeking stress, we enter into many kinds of training from higher education and the challenges of produce good grades to beating through deep woods to get the perfect wildlife photograph. Skateboarding, debating with friends about politics, or even changing jobs all have energetic changes for our body and mind that must be overcome so that we can emerge a winner in our own minds, succeeding and accomplishing what we have not done before!

As we look at stress in a new way, we practice skillfully disrespecting our old perceptions. This allows an open space to position the new perception in the primary position of leading us to excellence and as a byproduct, causes us to feel happy. Now we take that happiness and recycle it in the mind by expanding it in a special increase process that also acts as a healing of old perceptual wounds that prevented us from changing before. This exciting adventure in change includes other elements such as stabilizing new patterns and allows us to experiences self-confidence in our ability to change. The next part will begin to explore stabilizing and integrating new perceptions. To be continued….