Originally posted in Asheville Daily Planet 22 July 2008

Change is an inevitable experience that we all have at least a few times throughout our life. Some of these changes are welcomed and even desired, while others can feel difficult and even brutal. Then there are the changes that we have a choice over. We might feel trapped in our life, and know that we must make a change to improve the quality of our life. This is the kind of change that I will be talking about today.

There are times in our life when we might feel stuck. Sometimes riding that feeling of being stuck works well, and other times it is important to address the real cause for feeling stuck. Will change from within or change without be a real solution or a band aid?

If the situation is calling for a change in either our attitude or doing something different, and we resist making that change, then heaviness can enfold our life like a ball and chain, until we make the change that our inner self is telling us to make.

That inner self that is telling us that change is necessary sometimes can get confused with desire. How do we know that we are not reacting to desire, and changing because we want “more” of something that feels missing in our life?

It seems that when we first recognize that we are feeling stuck, then it seems necessary to first look within for the changes that might be necessary. But if the feeling of heaviness persists, and the deeper impulse for change stirs loudly within your soul, then it seems that not to honor that would only cause more feelings of deprivation.

Harold Wilson says it quite clearly: “He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”

I remember when I was in Arizona living a life that many people would appreciate; I could not get over the feeling that a chapter of my life was ending; it felt that I needed to move. Because I was a single parent with five adolescents, and a very supportive ex-husband who was helping, I ignored that feeling, and tried to make it feel right there.

Of course the inner feeling of change was quite persistent, to the point that I felt that I had no other choice. I had rationalized some reasons for the move to Asheville, and that rationalization helped motivate me to feel more courageous to make that difficult move. I rationalized that there was more racial diversity here, and that is what my children needed.

What I see 11 years later is that the reason that my mind came up with was not at all what I have experienced here, but this area has been tremendous in ways that I could not have gathered up with my conscious mind at that time, and has most definitely been the right thing to do.

Feeling the need to leave Arizona so strongly gave me the courage to make the changes that my family needed. I loved Arizona in so many ways that I would not have moved otherwise.

This change was really a hard change for all of us to make. However, we are all different in a positive way for having the courage to make the change that we needed for our own personal growth.

In my life-coach work, I see that change can be really a difficult thing to do. Sometimes it is easier to stay in a tolerable miserable situation then it is to risk it for change. Only your inner self can guide you with what is right, but oftentimes people don’t change until they are so miserable, that change is the only thing left to do.

It is possible to create the necessary change in our life before we get so unhappy, that we feel that we have no other help. Sometimes having a life coach or supportive group or friend can help us through the change that is necessary to go through. But ultimately it is up to our unique and individual self to follow our “calling” for change, and have the courage to do it.

We can live our life as a blossoming flower always reaching out to grow, unfold, and be the magnificent beings that we are.