Seasons of change

"Change is growth. Growth is life." ~willPower Team

I love this time of year. I prefer the colder days to the warmer ones for obvious reasons, but it's not about cold or warm weather. It's about the opportunity to embrace change.  Yes, I said it...embrace change. It is during this season that all of the planning for January programming really ramps up. Its the oppportunity to take a look at the past 10 months and try to find nuggets of beauty and identify false gold. As the wellness department at my Y enters the budget season, I see bright lights that lead the way for change to actually occur. It is this time of the year when I am afforded the chance to put my visions of where I think we should be into play. Its also the season for change to occur within me. Year after year I find that I turn my thoughts internally and begin to identify areas in my life that need change.

I believe that we are all change agents. The power lies within to change or challenge a situation that may be taking up too much space. That is the most amazing thing about change. It really has less to do with our environment and  more about our mindfullness of the direction we want our lives to take. I often find it funny when I hear people say that they "hate change". Sometimes I want to say, "Sorry friend, change is part of life. Maybe you should find a way to deal with it". As I use an enormous amount of will power to keep my mouth shut I can't help but to also think, "Does this person or group of people not look in the mirror? Change is always looking right back at them." I have found more so in the last couple of years that the changes in my life are most evident in my face. I am finding that as I grow a tad bit older each year I am graced with beautiful rites of passage under my eyes, and my the emphasis of my smile is more apparent even when I am not smiling. You may ask, "Is there ever a time when you are not smiling?" Yes, there is. Fortunately those times are rare. Change is an empowering opportunity to take the circumstances of your life and divert the current path to a healthier one.

When one begins a journey of change she will find resistance in every direction. It becomes difficult to stay the course and walk the rocky path of uncertainty. The uncertainty often comes from a place of insecurity. We become insecure about the outcomes of the directional change we have started. Our self confidence begins to slip and before we know it we have given up and are resolved in the fact that the new direction would have never worked anyway. You should stop to consider all that you learned on the journey before it got too tough and you began to give into the resistance. Valueable lessons can be learned from a failed attempt to change.

My challenge for you is to look for opportunities to create positive changes in your life or see the changes taking place as a wonderful part of life. If you try something and it doesn't really work consider yourself lucky that you can always change directions again.