by Satya (Tricia) Hurley, M.Ed.
Co-Founder, Cup of Life Healing Center
Do you struggle to make and hold onto lasting change? Do life’s circumstances seem to hold you back?
A little history: My parents separated when I was 4 years old. My brother and I grew up splitting our time between two households. While our parents loved us and always did the best they could with the tools they had at the time, life was tricky.
As a teenager, I made a pact with myself—my adult life and my family’s life would NOT look anything like the one I grew up in. I did not know what that meant at the time, nor did I have a clear picture what that entailed. However, to this day, I can easily recall an ultra-clear knowing from the depths of my Soul, a contract to transform my world.
It took many, many years before the spiritual part of that pact began to unfold and the journey still continues. When I look back on my life and on other’s journeys, a clear pattern emerges. There are 6 KEY ingredients for creating lasting change. We’ll look at each in more detail.
6 KEY INGREDIENTS TO LASTING CHANGE:
- Take an Active Role
- Introspection
- Feel What You’re Feeling
- Letting Go
- Stick-To-Itiveness
- Trust
TAKE AN ACTIVE ROLE:
This is the first and most important step. I’ll use myself as an example to illustrate the point. For many years, my path of personal change was a passive one. Until well into my 30’s I looked for the answers outside of myself placing lots of blame on my parents and other circumstances outside of my control for what was “wrong” with me and the world. I spent many years trying to force everything to look different.
I avoided. I numbed. I worked 60-90 hours a week so I didn’t have time to feel. I moved 3,000 miles from home. I climbed the corporate ladder and had “a big important job”. On the outside, things had changed. My life certainly didn’t look anything like that of my childhood—I had a wonderful husband, a fantastic salary, and a townhouse in Southern California less than a mile from the beach.
Yet, the inside hadn’t changed. On the inside, I was miserable. The shroud over my core Self was thick. Then, something happened—I got fed up. By some act of Grace, I started to see that there had to be a better way to be. I quit my job. I did yoga and meditated a lot. I took action. For the first time ever, I began to take responsibility for changing the way I felt and how I viewed and responded to the world. And, that was just the beginning. The true purpose of my teenage pact began to reveal itself. I am thankful to say that the wonderful husband still remains in my world, but the rest has been nothing short of a miraculous journey.
INTROSPECTION:
Introspection is a courageous act. It is the willingness to look INSIDE and an essential part of taking an active role. In introspection, you look deeply within yourself and are honest with what’s really there. For many, this is a terrifying proposition. The inner voices might sound something like, “What will I find?” “What if all I find out is that a horrible, worthless person is in there?” “If I were truly honest with myself, I’d have to start taking responsibility and I don’t know if I’m ready to do that.” “If I stop being angry at ‘them’, ‘they’ would win.” Introspection is a crucial step to STOP shifting the blame on everyone and everything else.
This was a HUGE shift for me. Instead of automatically getting mad at what was on the outside, I began to first ask things like, “What is this situation pushing on?”, “Why is this here for me?”, or “Even though this is uncomfortable, what spiritual lesson can I learn here?” While there were and still are outer circumstances to navigate, the act of feeling and taking my power back, playing that active role in my process has made all the difference.
FEEL WHAT YOU’RE FEELING:
If I am being truly honest, this was the hardest part for me and it took the longest to embrace. I can’t even begin to tell you how many people I’ve met over the years that struggle with this too. We’ve fooled ourselves into thinking that if we somehow stop, ignore, or pretend our feelings not there that they’ll magically go disappear. Yet, often we justify continuing in this way out of fear—“If I let myself feel it, I might end up out of control and ruin my life or others’ lives.”
Yet, there is nothing that could be further from the truth. It takes a TREMENDOUS amount of energy to “keep everything in check.” Every time we block our feelings, we block our creative energies and we cover over our True Self. To this I ask—what is it costing you to hold onto that old fear, that old story? What is it costing you every time you deny your feelings and yourself? It’s probably costing more than you’re willing to admit.
Give yourself permission to feel your feelings—all of them. Let them all wash through your awareness. The good, the bad, and the ugly feelings are all fair game. Because, when you stop denying yourself, and you stop pushing things down, things will begin to shift. Energy will begin to flow.
LETTING GO:
When I finally gave myself permission to feel and process what I was feeling, old issues that previously seemed impossible to release, no matter how much other spiritual work I did, began to resolve. The newfound inner peace and freedom have been nothing short of life-altering in a positive way.
Be willing to really look inside. Take a good look at your core beliefs, the things you tell yourself, your habits, your patterns, your tendencies, your gut reactions. Be willing to let go of the parts of these things that do not serve you and call into your being all the tools you need to create new habits, to form new beliefs, to love and believe in yourself to make the effort worth it.
STICK-TO-ITIVENESS:
We’ve become accustomed to an “instant-fix” for everything. Self-healing and self-reclamation in the most spiritual sense are far from an easy path. It takes an active, continuous, and concerted effort to let go of all of the things that hold you back, all of the excuses, all of the blame, shame, guilt and anger that keeps responsibility for change away.
Be willing to stay the course, even when it seems impossible. Be willing to trust that all the resources you need to align yourself with the Divine purpose for your life are already in place and they will show up on time. Be patient with apparent setbacks. They might not be setbacks at all. Instead, they just might be the very fuel you need to fulfill your purpose and path.
TRUST:
Above all, TRUST. Trust that within the core of your being is everything you need to heal and grow. There is no one being, nor anything that you need outside of yourself that you don’t already have. You are already your own perfect Divine being. You just don’t realize it at this moment because the shroud over your core has you caught in a false illusion that says otherwise.
IN SUMMARY:
- Take an active role.
- Look inside and be honest with yourself.
- Give yourself permission to feel and heal.
- Let go.
- Make a continuous concerted effort.
- Trust. Trust. Trust.
When I stay focused and dedicated to this, all that I need for my continued healing and continued path of dedication to being in complete and total alignment with my Souls’ purpose unfolds. All the people, places, and circumstances I need fall easily into place in my life and I continue to grow and heal. How might you incorporate these ingredients into your world?
