To Change!

I have been a big fan of the work and person of Barbara Winter and her Winning Ways newsletter for many years. I even had the joy of dining with her on one of her many visits to New York City.

If you are an entrepreneur or a wannabe entrepreneur or a I-might-want-to-be-an-entrepreneur-when-I-grow-up, Barbara’s work is for you!

Go to http://www.joyfullyjobless.com/ to learn about all her marvelous classes, tools and ideas for a joyfully jobless journey!

What appears below is from her e-newsletter. Her wisdom about different kinds of change grabbed my attention big time.

As you read this issue, think about these insightful words from Zora Neale Hurston:

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

CARE FOR SOME CHANGE?
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Doug is a transplanted Iowan who has kept his Midwest sensibilities and friendliness. He's also my favorite clerk at the post office which I visit every day, but it had been weeks since I'd managed to connect. This morning, however, I won the postal line lottery and had a chance to catch up. I asked him how he'd been and he sighed and said, "This has been our most difficult year ever." Then he added with a smile, "I know 2009 is going to be much better."

Plenty of people will be looking back at 2008 and coming to the same conclusion as Doug. It has been a year full of challenges and change. I happen to believe that many people are going to look back at 2008 and realize it was the year they began laying the foundation for living an amazing and creative life.

Why don't we all know that as it's happening? Changing times are often chaotic times causing many to feel confused and powerless. Those who resist surrender any hope of serenity, while those who understand and embrace change are seeing abundant opportunities. Since change is a constant, whether we approve or not, which position makes the most sense?

If you'd like to change the world or change your life or even change one tiny aspect of it, then you need to understand that change comes in two different packages and it's important to tell them apart.

There's Imposed Change which is the kind we can do nothing about. Taxes get raised, fashion designers insist we stop wearing willow green, or road construction slows down our travel plans. Imposed Change is most difficult to handle if you don't allow yourself to have options or insist on being inflexible or are committed to preserving the status quo.

On the other hand, there's Instigated Change. That's the kind that we think of as improving our lives because we have chosen it. Instigated Change happens after we pass through the preliminary steps that get us ready to take action. It's not necessarily any easier to adjust to Instigated Change than it is to Imposed Change, but it's ultimately more satisfying when we do adjust.

"I was always waiting around for someone to fix the world," confessed singer John Denver. "And then I realized that if the world was going to work, it was up to me." The day that you take responsibility for instigating positive change is the jumping off point for self-liberation. It's the day when a shift for the better happens and you discover that Embraced Change comes bearing gifts.

Imposed Change—we all know about that kind and our own acceptance of or resistance to it.
Instigated Change—still, at its core, change! How we handle it is up to us.
Ah, but Embraced Change! I consider this sort of change an email to the Universe.

I’ve decided.
I’m changing.
That’s it!

That’s when the Universal Conspiracy for Good kicks in. You take one step and the Universe takes five to meet you where and how you want to be met. In my experience, the Universe always, always, always delivers much more and better than my original request.

To change!

Change Coming

Seeds X, 34

Seed: Change Coming

Some of you know I write a blog for Ode Magazine on peace. I’ve been doing it for over a year now.

Juriaan Kamp, Editor-in-Chief of Ode, wrote in his essay in one issue, “The powers that be never see change coming. It’s not in their interest.” Bless their hearts, the powers that be are seeing a big change coming now and it’s called the presidential election. It’s been coming for a long while now.

The thing is, it doesn’t matter whether the powers that be see the change coming. The powers that aren’t yet are seeing change on the horizon. This works whether one is a nation or a person.

Need change? You are the power that is in your own life. See it coming. Visualize it. Dream it. Let the change change you. I’m pretty sure you’ll be glad you did.

Be content,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net and please visit my blogs Ode Magazine, and The Huffington Post.

The Secret to Huge Changes

I’ve been going through a few weeks of huge changes on many levels. Does this ever happen to you?

My body is in a roil over a new medication; it’s keeping me up nights and I’m exhausted.
My work situation is reducing itself; two gigs have gone away and another is waning.
My taxes are due, and they were more than I’d expected.

There’s more, but you get the picture. What gives?

I’m sure you’ve heard of the phenomenal success of the DVD and book called The Secret. Its author and proponents would say that my attitude is everything during a time of change such as this. I agree with them, to a point.

Attitude definitely makes a difference in life.

So how’s this for attitude?

My body is guiding me now to the proper medications which only help me.
My work situation is adapting so that bigger, better things can come into my life.
My taxes are done—early!—and I have figured out how to pay them.

Both sets of statements about the huge changes in my life are true. Which causes more ease? The second one.

For me, however, there’s a hurdle to get over first. Simply put, I’d name the hurdle: Fear.

When things are changing rapidly, fear can become a constant companion. It doesn’t always, but it can. What to do?

When I am fearful, the first thing I do is scan my body. Am I holding tension? Where? Is there a message that my body is trying to give me? {Even as we speak, I am writing a book called How To Live in a Body. We all need an instruction manual sometimes!} Then I do my utmost to relax and let go.

Tense bodies aren’t the happiest bodies. Tense bodies aren’t the most inspired bodies. Relaxed bodies are much happier. I relax my body consciously.

Then I get still and go within where the Divine Spark of me is alive and well—and fearless. I ask myself what would turn the spark into a flame right now?

It might be to read a novel. On the other hand, it might be to have a good look at my finances and make a plan to contact someone about a new gig.

Whenever I see one of those Help Wanted signs in a store window, I have to laugh because I see the words with punctuation as below.

Help Wanted?
Inquire Within.

That’s the only requirement when dealing with fear. I know there are metaphysical absolutists (which is what the folks associated with The Secret are) who say never to deal with fear. That doesn’t work for me.

I feel better, and less fearful, when I face my fear.

Is being exhausted the end of the world? No. Is a new medication going to kill me? No.
Is it likely that I won’t get a new gig? No.
Will the governments of the U.S. and Massachusetts fail if I pay my taxes late? No.

Susan Jeffers wrote a book that I had on my shelf for many years although I never read it. I liked the title, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.

I’m not a metaphysical absolutist although I understand the purpose of absolutism (to hold one’s will to what one wants). It doesn’t work for me. I know too much of my own and others’ humanity.

Human beings can be fearful. Not ideal, but so what? Fear happens. It’s what you do with the fear after it happens that matters. I face it. I befriend it. Then, by all means, I return to the stillness within me and blow on the spark, knowing, without doubt, that breath (quite literally, inspiration) will fan my spark into a flame, and I’ll be off on the next adventure in my life.

Deeper Sorrow

Tears graced my reality this morning. Yes, tears. They were and are a grace. Hard to think of tears this way? Think again. Sometimes I cry just because the tear buckets are full and need emptying. Nothing’s wrong. I’m not hurt or upset or anything specific—I just need to cry. Does this ever happen to you?

Tears, like laughter, are a form of release. They change the way I interact with my day, whatever its agenda. This is why it’s easy to welcome them. Tears bring change, and change is what life on this planet is all about.

This business of change can feel tricky. I am someone who welcomes change. My friends think I take risks. My inner experience of myself isn’t always how I am perceived. Funny thing about that.

It’s taken a little time and some contemplation this morning and now I think I know why I was crying. I was crying for a future I won’t be living. This is not to say that I won’t be living in the future. It’s just that one of the futures I thought was available to me isn’t, so I cried. I cried, and I let it go. Another future is coming to be even as I write.

Kahlil Gibran is a lovely poet. He wrote, “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” It’s true. Emotion is a spectrum. Refuse to experience sorrow, cut it out of your experience, and joy is also lopped off your emotional spectrum.

So, dear one, welcome tears whatever their cause, or even if they’re causeless! In creating perspective in a drawing, one of the rules is that the darkest dark must touch the lightest light thereby creating three-dimensionality in a two-dimensional medium.

Tears this morning? Go ahead, cry. Usually, joy by noon.