“A guarantee in this life: Change! Flexibility is better than predictability!”
~~~Evinda Lepins
While you are at the gym . . . or at the yoga class . . . or bending and stretching to retrieve something lost behind the fridge, think for a moment about your flexibility. You value it on the level of the physical body. You want to maintain flexibility as you age as part of enjoying good health. A flexible body ensures ease of movement and ease of movement is a wonderful sensation and a precious gift.
Now think about your beliefs, perceptions and patterns of emotional response that help to make you – YOU. How flexible are you when it comes to not only what you believe about the world but what you believe about yourself?
Flexibility In Belief
Is it possible that flexibility about what you believe is a good thing? I believe it is.
Perhaps you know someone who believes all the same things they believed when they were young and who is now so entrenched in those beliefs that change of any kind causes anxiety and fear. Perhaps you find this in yourself sometimes depending on what change is upon you.
Perhaps you have a dream for your life but hold on to a belief about how it should come into being so fiercely that you never see all the options just waiting beyond the borders of your belief to bring your dream to you easily and effortlessly.
Perhaps you have a belief that you need to do things yourself and find it hard to accept help from others. Perhaps you have clear convictions about what is the right way to behave in the world and harbor a lot of judgment about people who don’t measure up.
Perhaps you are even inflexible in how accepting you are of yourself.
Flexibility is an energy that opens the door to possibility, miracles of coincidence and synchronicity and to dramatic shifts of personal growth and transformation.
Predictability may feel safe but it is an illusion.
Change is the nature and order of the universe. And that means that change is also the nature and order of your life.
You can stretch those mental and emotional muscles and create and recreate your self-view.
3 Steps To Increase Your Flexibility
I am inviting you to get your journal and when you have some uninterrupted quiet time, try this three-step experiment in flexibility. Each step stands on its own and maybe repeated as often as you want:
Exercise #1. Challenge Your Beliefs with a”What if” Statement
Take one (just one) belief you have about yourself that is a limitation you think you have. An example might be “I can’t draw.” Or, “I don’t have a good singing voice.” Or, “I’m not very creative.” You’ll find one – you know what those limiting self-beliefs are.
Write it down at the top of a blank piece of paper and underneath it write “What if (your belief) isn’t true?” So using one of the examples above you would write “What if my belief that I’m not very creative isn’t true?”
Sit with that question and then write what would happen if that belief were not true. What would it mean? Who would you be? What would be different about your life, your choices, or how you present yourself to the world?
ALSO CHECK OUT: 12 Steps To Release Emotions & Limiting Beliefs With Color
Exercise #2. Use Others As A Mirror To Your Own Judgements
This next step takes you away from self-reflection initially while you focus on others. For this part think about someone you know who you believe doesn’t behave the way a person should. Maybe this is someone you work with (or live with). Maybe it is someone with whom you recently argued. Whoever comes first to mind is the person to work with for this part of the exercise.
Once you have identified the person and the behavior you don’t like, write down how you perceive that person. Maybe you’ve labeled that person ‘selfish,’ or ‘rude,’ or ‘controlling,’ or any one of a number of labels that are used to pigeon-hole someone.
Underneath your statement of perception, write down a simple question.
‘How am I [label]?‘ So you might write ‘How am I controlling?’ Take time to answer the question as thoroughly as you can. It is human nature that you might label other people with behaviors and traits that you disown in yourself.
This part of the exercise helps you see your shadow side. Once you see it then you have a choice to own and accept it or make some changes. Most importantly, this exercise has the positive benefit of making you less eager to give others the label you yourself want to avoid.
RELATED POST: How To Master the Art of Selfishness (& Why You Really Should)
Exercise #3. Adopt Affirmations of Change and Movement
The last part of the exercise is to write an affirmation that supports your desire to be more open to change and more flexible in your beliefs. Write down:
“I am perfect, whole and complete. My life unfolds in perfect, divine order. I am open to the continuing process of change that is part of who I am.”
Allow the affirmation to enfold you. Repeat it at least three times in writing and then say it out loud. See how it feels. Notice whether you experience a sense of peace as you say it.
For the next few weeks I encourage you to adopt this affirmation as part of your daily routine. Connect to it every day either by writing it or thinking it as a meditative exercise or saying it out loud. Write it down and put it on your desk, on your refrigerator, even on the mirror in your bathroom.
Each one of the steps above stands on its own. Work with each one on a regular basis to continue to test your beliefs and perceptions. You may find that some of your long-held beliefs and perceptions start to shift, leaving you happier and less anxious about life and change.
Change can be sudden or planned. It can be forced upon you or be part of your own process of forward movement in life. It is the nature and order of the universe. Change is constant even though we may not perceive it as such.
RELATED POST: Need a Boost? Check out these Affirmations for Confidence and Personal Success
Remember that flexibility (especially of the mind) is the energy that opens the door to possibility, miracles of coincidence and synchronicity and to dramatic shifts of personal growth and transformation.
Wishing you blessings of love and light,
Cathleen
