How Change Happens

What if change naturally happens effortlessly? Much like the trees in nature, what if change just happens for us when understanding shifts..?

On Friday I spent the day on a client intensive. One of the topics that came up was how change happens.

To me it looks pretty clear. Change happens when someone see’s something differently. Or to be more precise, when they have an insight, or quite literally, a sight from within.

The example I use is of sailors, who in the days when the earth was believed to be flat, would drop their anchor when they had travelled a certain distance from land in order that they didn’t fall off the side of the earth. That behaviour makes sense when there is a believed ‘edge’ to the world.

However, when they understood that the earth was indeed spherical their behaviour changed. They didn’t have to make themselves remember not to drop the anchor; they didn’t have to say affirmations or write notes, it just no longer made sense to drop the anchor so they didn’t.

That is what I call effortless change and it’s available to each and every one of us.

Behaviour changes easily and effortlessly when the beliefs that drive them are seen for what they are, and no longer look true.

How is change more likely to happen?

In order for something to be seen differently, we have to put ourselves in a position for this to be more likely.

At the art workshop I co-ran on Saturday, one participant was describing how her husband was in a challenge with a friend to spot 100 different bird species.

What occurred to me was that in order for him to do that, he was going to have to put himself in situations where he’s likely to see different birds.

If he were to stay at home looking out of his window, for example, he might see 10 different species. He could do that every day for a year and might never see more than those 10. He could get frustrated and blame his garden, or the area he lived in, or the weather, or anything else (!) for the lack of variety. And he wouldn’t win the challenge with his friend.

So how could he win the challenge? Well, obviously, he’d need to visit lots of different places and habitats. That way, he’d be increasing his chances of seeing new birds and increasing his chance of winning.

And the possibility of change happens in the same way.

If you want something in your life to be different, doing the same thing you’ve always done isn’t going to make that happen.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” Albert Einstein.

What does doing something different look like?

When we are faced with an apparent problem we tend to go back into our minds to try and find a solution. The problem here, as Einstein so eloquently shared, is that we’re never going to find the solution to a problem that has been created by that same mind.

As the brilliant, intelligent humans that we are, we learn as we grow. We acquire beliefs and conditioning like sponges absorb water. These beliefs form the basis for how we see the world. They are more often than not invisible to us (subconscious), yet they dictate every aspect of our behaviour.

While invisible, the best we can do is try to change behaviour at that level. In other words, we go on a diet or start exercising or try to reduce the amount of wine we drink in a week.

It can work but it takes effort and the changes are almost always not lasting.

For real change to happen, it has to take place at the belief-level. By addressing long held and invisible limiting beliefs, change happens naturally and effortlessly.

And how do we do this? Well, we put ourselves in a position for the possibility of this. We place ourselves in an environment where beliefs are brought to the surface and seen for what they are; collections of thoughts innocently handed down to us through generations.

That could be through reading blogs like this, reading books exploring how our individual experience is created, listening to podcasts looking at the nature of reality, or working with me or anyone else in the field who is exploring Truth; the truth of who/what we really are beneath the beliefs.

If you’d like to explore this with me please book a free call with me here. Or reach out for recommendations of resources to help you in your journey.