The more you resist change the more you suffer

Just sharing a personal realization with all of you and one that applies to any area of our lives that needs to be exposed to the light. If we ignore what our bodies need, there's always a price to pay. The longer we ignore our bodies, the bigger the price. If we ignore what we need on an emotional or spiritual level, then our lessons get harder and harder until we finally make the internal/external changes that need to happen. Often times, the physical and emotional/spiritual changes go hand in hand. A shift in one area makes the other area shift.

I became interested in change management back in my corporate days when I worked on a corporate change management program with Molson. And now I'm constantly involved in change management and transformation at work all day.
And personally, I've experienced endings and beginnings. In fact, I have a tattoo on my belly that means life and rebirth. Sometimes change means letting go of something to allow for change (the death of something) to allow space for something new.

This death can mean a letting go of something we once thought important (a change in priorities). Given that most people don't feel they have enough time to exercise, this is especially true for people who need to let go of something in order to find time to make themselves a priority.

Change can be a little painful. Transformation in life takes energy, and a little discomfort sometimes. So for all my friends out there who are trying to make change and feel like they keep getting sucked back into old patterns or for those of us who have people around us who aren't helping us (even a mama who keeps trying to feed us and we comply to keep the peace), here's a poem a new friend of mine sent me.


The Journey

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice --
though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do -- determined to save the only life you could save.

~ Mary Oliver ~