Evolving versus Changing

​Why this discussion about "Evolving versus Changing"?

• My practice focus is teaching people to heal so they can be healthy for a lifetime.
  

• The ability to make changes is at the heart of healing any part of your life, physical, emotional/mental or spiritual.
  

• Symptoms always indicate a need for something to change. Healing is the process of figuring out what exactly needs to change and accomplishing those changes, pure and simple!

Most people do not believe they can change and therefore they do not!

Here is the rub! We naturally resist change.
To understand why we resist change would be to unlock the secrets of the human psyche and release us all from the bondage of our willful selves! Mission impossible. It is less important to understand the why we resist and more important to understand how we can make changes that will aid our healing and not be "working" at them.

As a cultural we have a tendency to believe that no one changes! Here I get to apply my favorite word, poppycock. Poppycock is basically a polite way of saying bullshit! People change every day, everything changes every day. The world around us is constantly changing with the seasons, by the hour in fact. One moment we can have a beautiful sunny day, a few minutes later storm clouds are blowing in leading to rain. The constancy of the creation, is change. It's the one thing we can count on, nothing stays the same ever!

Given we are always changing...
Whether or not our changing is bringing an improvement to our lives or a leading to a state of downward evolution is the issue. To understand our relationship to change we look to the the nature of life in the created world and the source or, Divine Creative Energy. God, a name we give this force, is a creator who brings  forth life. There is also  another aspect of God represented in the form of the Hindu goddess, Shiva the destroyer.

There is obviously an element of destruction within the forces that rule our planet, our universe and the entire creation. Reduction through destruction is a natural force of evolution in which failure is inevitable. It is this failure that leads to the recharging of the system which then brings forth something new, the ongoing evolution of progressive movement forward.

As humans we have the choice to evolve in a constructive and creative way to bring more abundant life to ourselves and others. Or, the opposite in which one may be unconsciously choosing to move in the opposite direction, destroying self, health and  happiness.

• Unconscious or not these choices to move in that direction are going to affect yourself and others negatively.
  
• Choices to move in a positive direction will also affect and uplift others positively.

The truth is we all know this.

But, knowing this truth and being able to consistently move in a positive or forward direction are two different things. This is the conundrum of human beings. The Apostle Paul summed it up in his comment within the book of Romans 7:24-25,  "Oh, wretched man that I am who can save me from this death. That which I would do, I do not. That which I would not do, I do! " This dilemma is the experience of anybody who has ever tried to go on a "diet "! The minute you set yourself to go on some special diet or exercise plan what happens, you find yourself doing the opposite in most cases!

The secret of creating change is awareness!

It is not found in doing, it is found in awareness. When we become more aware of what drives our choices, of how our choices make us feel within our body, heart and mind and go further to connect The way we are now feeling to the choice we made. We begin to become motivated to choose differently.

Here's an example of Type II diabetic client.

• She was insulin resistant through her unconscious choices of inactivity, high protein diet in combination with processed carbohydrates, high amounts of sugar in the form of white flour and white rice. Try as she might to change her choices she struggled in the past before she met me.


• I recommended modified fasting. This involved eating a healthy breakfast of brown rice and vegetables with eggs. Through the day she was allowed to have 2 to 3 servings of fresh fruit, raw veggies and nuts. Each day ending the 8 hour eating period with a light evening meal of soup or veggies and a small portion of meat or fish. The timing was set up so that there would be a period of at least 16-18 hours of fasting between her next breakfast meal allowing her body to utilize the excess glucose during the fasting time of 16 hours.*


• Her determination made it possible for her to do this for about three days.  Amazed by the drop in her blood glucose and a corresponding drop in blood pressure she felt so much better! We discussed the difference in how she was feeling and what she was noticing about the fasting experience, the feeling of feeling better!

 

• Then came "failure", which is actually the process of succeeding very misunderstood by most people. She dropped back into her usual eating pattern. When she came back to see me what struck her the most was how crappy she felt going back to her former eating pattern.

 

• It was her ability to become aware by noticing how she felt with these two different ways of eating that paved the way for her to be more often successful at the modified fasting plan and heal her type II diabetes which requires a radical change in order to heal the overburden pancreas and reverse insulin resistance. 

Let's pick this apart
​To understand how she was able to shift away from what was not working for her into something that was better.

Success started with her willingness to try.

• All we needed was for her to be willing for a few days to do something very different. Whether she succeeded or failed was not the important thing.

Her failure was actually the beginning of her success.

• The failure set the stage for her to "notice" the difference in how she felt in her usual pattern of eating versus the semi fasting pattern.
• The difference was night and day. So glaringly obvious she could not miss it! The awareness makes it easier to evolve out of the old pattern. 

This client went on to be successful and altering her level of blood glucose to the point that she was able to come off of metformin, the standard type two diabetes, preliminary drug*.​

Awareness Homework
Doesn't everyone just love homework! This is not that...it is an opportunity to be more "with yourself". Awareness Homework assignments are little things I ask clients to do.
Whether they do it or not is less important that what they noticed in the process of doing or not doing! These assignments naturally promote awareness and since awareness is the vehicle for change it always works!

I often give an Awareness Homework assignment to become more aware of your breathing patterns. Connection to breath, our awareness of breath, and the level at which we're breathing plays a very important role in our health, well-being as well as our reactivity to stressors.

When we have a good connection to our breath and are able to access a deep, smooth, conscious breathing easily it's an indication that we are well rested, grounded, and centered within our ourselves. When in this state, we are less likely to react or overreact to the crazy making behaviors of others or the stress inducing situations that arise as a normal part of life.

Unfortunately, most of the people that come to see me are barely breathing. During Chi Nei Tsang sessions I monitor breathing. More often than not I observe a irregular breathing or a breath pattern that is so low they appear to be barely breathing at all!

Barely breathing is a form of a freeze response, breath holding!

• Why are we holding our breath? We hold our breath to avoid what we are feeling. Freezing is a way of checking out until the coast is clear. It is a natural response to trauma, but in "breath holding" this natural process has gone awry.

 

• Holding the breath becomes an unconscious way of avoiding what we feel. The moment I support a connection to breath big feelings come up for clients.


• Why do we avoid what we are feeling? We avoid what we are feeling because it seems too big to deal with, we are overwhelmed, even exhausted.​

Chronic holding patterns
Most people have their anal sphincter puckered up, are holding the jaw clenched down and the entire upper body and rib cage is usually very tight with little flexibility. This is bracing which sets up what is known as a chronic holding pattern. The body conforms to the chronic holding pattern, leaving us unable to access how we feel like a shut off valve. The psyche says I can't handle all of this so I'm just going to "push it down " and wait until it's over.

Reconnect to breath is a crucial aspect of my holistic method of healing. 
Sessions end with discussing the breathing patterns I noticed. I give them the homework assignment to becoming more aware of their breath, practicing each morning and each evening with 10 full conscious breaths. The assignment is to simply notice what is happening as they attempt to take 10 smooth even breaths.

There may be times when they are unable to actually connect with their breath at all. There may be other times when they're able to breathe quite smoothly. The noticing is the key to the ability to shift consciousness and find a new pattern.

The absolute imperative is for them to understand we are not trying to "fix" the breath. The breath will evolve as we become aware of what makes it challenging to find our breath and under what conditions is it easier. In the same way my diabetic client evolved out of her symptom these clients evolve into a healthier breath connection and they feel better. 

The power of noticing
We simply begin to notice when it is easier to connect and when it is not easy making us more aware of what leads to easier or more difficult. Getting a "feeling" for what positively or negatively impacts and alters the breath accordingly.

​Difficulty connecting to breath usually follows having an upset with someone, feeling overwhelmed, maybe we didn't eat enough through the day and our blood sugar is low, or we didn't sleep well. Noting the factor of negative affect allow  us to be more aware of how we live in our bodies and evolve into a better way of responding to life's challenges.

Whatever it is, it is in the noticing of what makes it better and what makes it worse that we begin to evolve effortlessly without "working at it". We become naturally drawn to what makes us feel better. ​

This is the secret of evolving.
The entire earth and all created things have been constantly evolving. Metaphorically, if the earth was a person, it never sat down and said, "Wait a minute, I've gotta make a plan for this. I'm going to make these changes and this is the way it's going to happen!". That's absurd!

Neither do the animals purpose or fret over the constant evolution of their species. They don't say, "Oh my goodness, I'm gaining weight, or my fur is changing color, my feet need to be smaller. I need to do something to change this." They flow within the natural environment, eat the food that is available, go hungry, feast, experience traumas and resolve them in much the same way we can.

You are not a problem to be solved
We force ourselves to live within a cage of our misconceptions and notions about fixing ourselves like we are a problem to be solved.

As we let go of the notion that we need to be fixed and we find ourselves content to simply become aware. What am I doing and how does it feel. This non-judgemental attitude liberates us from guilt and shame and leads to great success. 

Nobody ever said, "I'm gonna do this thing that makes me feel horrible and keep doing this thing that makes me feel horrible because I like the feeling of feeling horrible".

In cases with addiction people seem to be choosing what makes them feel horrible. Sadly, the addict is chasing a sense of comfort which they desperately need. They are mistaken in believing that the drug is going to give them that sense of comfort that it first offered them in the beginning of "using ".

Recovery for the addict is the same as for everybody else. Entering into a state of self acceptance, self-pity, which is compassion and a determination to simply learn to pay attention to how one is feeling. The process of awareness allows us to begin to digest our experiences and evolve into a more mature posture. Our compassion and self love begins to nourish us, and we begin to naturally seek that which makes us feel better, because we believe that we deserve to feel better.

A study which I can no longer find or access from many years ago, determined that there were three primary characteristics of people who were able to recover from terminal or chronically debilitating illness.

Those three characteristics were:

• A belief in a higher being, who is benevolent and cares for them.
• Having at least one individual who has taken on a care for them and encourages them and provides support.
• Believing that they deserve to be well and enjoy their life!

Where are you at
If you are facing symptoms, whether they are physical in the form of an illness or condition that you can't quite seem to shake. Or, an emotional or mental challenge such as anxiety, or depression. Possibly a spiritual challenge as in feeling lost without direction on unable to perceive where you should be moving toward in your life or perhaps a crisis of faith... is there really anything out there in the form of a divine being that loves me and is there to help and support me?

Often we are in all three of these states at one time!
​It sucks!! But you can trust that healing is possible. You can learn to adapt your thinking away from the idea that you are a problem to be solved and need to be fixed, you can become more aware of your breathing, which will then connect you to how you feel which will then support shifting your choices away from that which makes you feel bad...this leads to the power to change as an evolution of consciousness rather than working at it!

Find support
Consider exploring my Breathe Guided Meditation and Course as a way to start shifting away from a negative view of yourself into a more powerful way to be in the world and having more choice about how you're living your life!


 See Breathing and Feeling article for more insights about breath.

My blessings to all who come to believe they can Heal their Life
​

*Metformin is a gateway drug that ensures the pancreas will be unable to shift it's messaging system and remain locked in the excess glucose burden.

*French physicians during the Napoleonic wars discovered that low rations and starvation of soldiers lead to reversal of symptoms in diabetics. In just makes sense burn up the excess fuel and stop feeding the body foods that elevate glucose, the change that allows the pancreas to reverse it's confused signalling.