The Law Of Change
There is a law that has a constant and dramatic effect in our life, and that law is the law of change. The law of change states that everything is in the process of becoming something else. Change happens everywhere and with everyone and happens constantly. In the galaxies of outer space, where our sun will burn out in a few hundred million years, change is happening. In the subatomic world, where particles are colliding with one another and morphing into something else in hundredths of a second, change is happening. Everything is always changing.
So too in our lives, change is the one constant that we can be absolutely sure of. So why don’t we live our lives acknowledging this and initiate change on a regular basis, thus putting ourselves in harmony and rhythm with this process? Why is change so hard to embrace? We must learn to be comfortable with change and eventually embrace it. The Mind Power practitioner works with the law of change, initiating changes through choice, will and practice. Initiating change while flowing with the changes as they happen, is a dance with life that the Mind Power practitioner loves to do.
There are three main factors that are the causes of change in our life: choice, chance and crisis. All three carry power and have their own particular dynamic. Of the three I prefer choice. Choice allows me to be proactive in directing and choosing my changes, rather than having them just happen to me. Let me put it another way. If there was a change meter that sets how much change is supposed to happen to us, and you initiate a lot of those changes yourself, doesn’t that reduce the possibility of them happening to you by chance or crisis? Think about it. If nothing else, this is a philosophical and mathematical truth and is probably the way it works. Each of us will be faced with all three modes of change, but using choice allows us to navigate our life with greater dexterity, and it should be a whole lot more fun.
Working with the dynamics of choice means embracing change as a constant reality in our life, being vigilant in looking for changes that would help us, and then being proactive in initiating them. In business there is an old maxim that says that no business stays the same year after year. You are either gaining market share or losing market share. You are either innovating new products and gaining on your competition or your competition is innovating new products and gaining on you. You are becoming either more competitive or less competitive. You are either gaining customers or losing customers. If things are going well you may choose to make no changes and run your business exactly as you have in the past. The marketplace, however, is not static. It is a constant hive of activity and change, and by not initiating change you may easily fall behind. We usually don’t make changes when things are going well, but we must pay homage to the Change Gods; they demand change, and if we do not initiate change, life will initiate it for us.
So too in our relationships with our friends, children, parents, spouses or co-workers; all are in the process of becoming something else. Through using the dynamics of choice we can choose to deepen and enrich the relationships that are important to us.
Our health will not remain the same. Our choices in diet, exercise, thoughts and lifestyle will all have their effect. So too with our spirituality. Left alone, unattended, it will not stay the same, but will wither into something that no longer nourishes us. Choosing to enrich our spirituality by practices, prayer and study, and making this an active part of our life, we reap the rewards. Identify aspects of your life that would respond favorably to change, and then activate that change, putting yourself in harmony with the greater laws of the universe. That is how choice is used to change. You are now participating and becoming the law of change in your own life.
Chance: Chance is the word we use when we don’t know or understand why something has happened to us. From a Mind Power perspective, very few things happen by pure chance. Ninety-five percent of the things that happen to us have their causes in our thoughts (conscious and subconscious) and our actions. There is a cause and effect relationship, though we might not always recognize it. We are on a far better footing, both metaphysically and practically, if we assume responsibility for what is happening in our life and get on with it, rather than believing that our life’s circumstances have nothing to do with us. Chance is like luck, and yes, both exist, but here’s an excellent quote that sums up my feelings about luck:
“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” A.J. Foyt (winner of the Indianapolis 500).
Initiate positive change in your life regularly and chance and luck will favor you.
Crisis: Everyone will experience crisis at different times in their life. Marriages break up, businesses fail, a death happens in the family, we lose our job, we have a major health issue, we get wiped out financially. While crises are never enjoyable, they are almost always transformational. Why? Because the crisis forces us to make changes we never would have made prior to the crisis. Comfort is the enemy of change, and when we are too comfortable in our present situation, we often resist the impulse to make change. A crisis dramatically forces that change upon us. It’s always painful and never pleasant, but if accepted it is ultimately healing and almost always beneficial. You can trust the process of crisis.
Whenever someone tells me they are going through a midlife crisis I always respond, “How wonderful. I’m so excited and happy for you.” And I mean it. How wonderful that at the midpoint of your life your psyche should shake you up and make you look at your life and the way you are living it. What a gift this is to you. At the midpoint, where there is still time to make new choices and have new experiences, your psyche is gifting you with this crisis.
A crisis is like a forceful, abrupt change tornado which initiates dramatic change whether you like it or not. So whatever crisis you may presently be going through, embrace it as a tremendous opportunity. In my thirty years of traveling and teaching, countless hundreds of people have shared with me how their deepest crisis was a major positive turning point in their lives. A lost job results in a new and more rewarding career. Failing health results in a new lifestyle. Financial ruin leads to a deeper spirituality. These are not the exceptions, but rather a glimpse of the human experience enjoyed by those transformed by a personal crisis.
Change happens through choice, chance and crisis. Change your life through choice, and, as Ghandi said, “Be the change you want to see in life.”
