Quote from Brené Brown in Daring Greatly: “The willingness to show up changes us. It makes us a little braver each time.” Found on page 42.

Image by Mary Blacklock. Photo taken by Mary on a hike in the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, NM.

Read: Dare to Gain Clarity through Vulnerability | Read Daring Greatly.

When it comes to change, we know that it will eventually happen. However, that doesn’t mean that we are willing to change or find change easy. Sometimes change is downright challenging. Why is that? Change can activate a fight or flight response. When we are in the midst of change we can feel more stressed and when we are stressed we are more likely to enter into fight or flight behaviors. We need to learn how to shift focus in the midst of change.

Change Gets a Bad Rap

There are many jokes on the subject of how difficult it is for people to change. There’s the classic joke that asks how many people it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is always a loud and hesitant, “Change?!” 

I’m amused at this joke mostly because I heard it first as a Protestant.  It went like this, “How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?”

When I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy I heard the same joke. “How many Orthodox does it take to change a light bulb?”

“Change?!” 

Perhaps we aren’t as different as we think.

Analogy from a Turning Boat

Two weekends ago I was able to attend a retreat for young professionals of the Orthodox Christian faith. Among opportunities to learn and grow in faith and community there was a social event on a yacht in the Boston Harbor.

We all braved the Massachusetts chill to cruise around the harbor, eat great food, and dance. I think it’s safe to say that we all enjoyed this opportunity and that it was a great way to bring the retreat to an end.

Dancing on a boat that occasionally turns is where I see the analogy. 

If one really focused on dancing, they might not notice the boat turning. However, in my experience, there were times I would suddenly become aware that my feet were moving to the beat of the music, but my body leaned another direction to the pull of the boat. It is that pull of the boat as it turns that I am referring to.

Shift Your Focus in the Midst of Change (i.e. Lean into the Turn)

As the boat slowly turned in the water, I quickly discovered that if I leaned into the turn of the boat with a spin of my own, it was not only easier on the mind but more fun. 

Why was it easier on the mind? It took my mind off the slow and somewhat wobbly turn we were experiencing.

Isn’t leaning into the turn what we need to do sometimes when life brings about change? Instead, we tend to focus on how wobbly everything is around us or how unstable or how slow things seem.  To shift our focus in the midst of change, perhaps we need to look for a way to spin and lean into the change.

What Does Leaning into Change Look Like?

I can’t say that I know what leaning into the change looks like in every situation, or that I’m particularly good at it.

However, if I can begin to learn how to shift my focus from what is slow and wobbly in the midst of change to ways I might lean into the change, I would consider that progress.

Are you with me?

More Articles to Read

For those that are looking for ways to change attitudes, gain clarity, and make the changes to our behaviors that build a better us.

Posts on Attitude:

Attitude Will Make or Break You

Posts on Behavior:

How do you know good help from bad help?

Posts on Clarity:

How taking the first step clears the way for clarity

Posts on Faith:

Our thoughts impact our life | Introduction to Logismoi

A lack of clarity can be really daunting. Where do you start? When do you know you’re ready to start or if you picked the right starting place? Will you be okay with the result? There are so many questions that we ask when we lack clarity. We want to know the right answer to our questions. However, that desire doesn’t always help us out. Sometimes we get stuck trying to find the right answer and we don’t take any action. Sometimes taking the first step clears the way for clarity.

Asking Questions to Gain Clarity

Reflection can be a good step towards clarity. Especially when the other options seem too daunting or when we are trying to learn from previous steps.

Try asking yourself these questions:

1. What are the four most recent changes that you have made in your life?
2. What triggered you to make those changes?
3. Can you connect how each trigger and each change resulted in another trigger for change?
4. If you can connect them, did you gain any insight into what change you might address next? If you couldn’t connect them, do you see any patterns in your process for deciding what to work on in each case?

I’m interested in hearing your answers to question 4.

I asked it in this way, because I was able to connect my triggers and changes into a sort of chain reaction. I’m curious if this is your experience or if it works in a different way for you.

Behavior Challenge:  If taking the first step clears the way for clarity, take some time to reflect on what your first step will be.

While addressing limiting beliefs and reframing negative thoughts is incredibly powerful and a game changer for those of us that learn to reframe and turn limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs, is there a limit to how far this practice can take us? Does it work on all the thoughts that we think? This is important because our thoughts impact our life.

Our thoughts impact our life. They make a difference.

In my journey to change and improve my situation, I started reading and listening to people that had already improved their situation. It helped me immensely to engage this type of content. It provided me with ideas, insight, and hope.

Since becoming more intentional about my personal growth I’ve noticed a change in my default thoughts or responses to questions. I have stronger answers to certain questions and some of the questions that would have deflated me in the past (due to a lack of confidence) don’t. Listening to podcast interviews from people that do research on the brain, or understand behavior in an eye opening way, or who have discovered a tool to help them gain traction in life, helps me continue to rid myself of straggling negative thoughts that want to stick around.

This can all be summarized by remembering that what goes in will also come out. I have heard this theme in several podcasts that discuss making changes in your life as well as in personal growth and productivity focused online courses. The idea is that if you fill your brain with inconsequential content, stress inducing content, or negative content, that’s what will come out. On the other hand, if you fill your mind with empowering content, that’s what will come out.

Therefore, if we are facing our negative thoughts and working to overcome limiting beliefs it can be helpful to also surround ourselves with content that reinforces what we want to think about and express.

Overcoming thoughts at a deeper level.

While addressing limiting beliefs and reframing negative thoughts is incredibly powerful and a game changer for those of us that learn to reframe and turn limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs, is there a limit to how far this practice can take us? Does it work on all the thoughts that we think?

In my experience, the answer to that last question is no. At least not in the way it’s explained by the personal development world. While the strategy for overcoming limiting beliefs helps me in terms of what jobs to apply to and when thinking about what I am capable of accomplishing in a day or a year, there are some thoughts that need a deeper practice to overcome.

What are these thoughts?

If you read my article that introduced this category for my blog, it mentioned good and bad in the unconscious heart. What the personal development world doesn’t talk about are thoughts that feed in an unhealthy way on our inner desires. These are the types of thoughts that need more than the beginning steps of reframing.

Our inner desires run amuck (called passions) lead to thoughts that need a deeper strategy- a strategy that enters into the heart through what is called the prayer of the heart. These thoughts and the deeper strategy are the topic of the book I mentioned in last month’s introductory post.  It is also the source for the remaining paragraphs in this article.

The book is Confronting and Controlling Thoughts.  The writing on thoughts found in this book is very accessible. It is extremely helpful for gaining insight into the urgency of not simply learning to reframe thoughts, but to guard your mind from negative and distracting thoughts.

An introduction to logismoi.

These negative and distracting thoughts are called logismoi. There are actually 2 kinds of logismoi: 1) thoughts of peace and joy and 2) thoughts of anxiety and turmoil. The thoughts that we need to confront urgently are those that are of anxiety and turmoil, those that distract, and those that keep us focused in a negative direction other than focused on God.

In “Confronting and Controlling Thoughts”, St Thalassius is mentioned as describing the source of logismoi as being from 1) the senses 2) memory and 3) the body’s temperament. What we take in, what we remember, and our temperament are sources or entry ways for logismoi to enter our heart.

Positive Input

This brings me back to what I mentioned at the beginning of the article. What we take in will come out.

A quote in Confronting and Controlling Thoughts was helpful for my own understanding of this connection.

The mind is like a clock that is constantly running down, someone said. It has to be wound up daily with good thoughts. We need to start storing God’s powerful words in our memory bank as well as in our heart.

from Confronting and Controlling Thoughts by Anthony M. Coniaris

Taking in readings from the Bible is an important part of filling your mind and heart with the positive thoughts needed to overcome passions and logismoi.

What does this have to do with personal development?

It’s important because our thoughts impact our life!

A person that thinks confidently sees opportunities. A person that thinks they will never amount to anything misses opportunities. Consider thoughts that lead us to feel overly anxious, depressed, or bitter. These thoughts might not easily be affected by the typical personal development strategy of reframing. If unattended these negative thoughts will affect our life in negative ways.

If a thought that is unhealthy for us to keep focusing on takes root in our hearts, we are not able to grow.

More to Come.

There is so much that I could write about this topic. I’m sure there will be more to come.

In fact, next month, if all goes according to plan, I will continue this mind and thoughts theme by taking a look at the book, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives. Be sure to check back on the 4^th Thursday of the month for the next post in the faith and behavior category.

Until next time, have you tried reframing certain thoughts only to feel like you can’t overcome them?

Behavior Challenge:  Is there a scripture that you can memorize to help keep your mind thinking positive thoughts?

Resources:

Still not sure what I mean by passions? Here’s a short intro post on the essence of the passions.

Not sure what the prayer of the heart is? Read this short into post on the prayer of the heart.

Other Posts:

I mentioned in my introductory post on faith and behavior the importance of making connections between science and faith .