Those sensations that we all feel, but can not explain

Scene 1: There’s this decision standing right in front of you. It is some minutes before the deadline of some very attractive looking offer on the web, but you need to invest some considerable amount to purchase it. You have a very good feeling about it, but some part of you is also afraid of losing that money, because of it turning out a scam! What if it is a scam? You can clearly imagine how you would feel right after finding out that you were deceived. This is the situation you find yourself in. What are you going to do? Will you go with your gut feeling? Or will you surrender to your worries?

Scene 2: A friend is telling you the details of this great investment opportunity on a Friday evening, after a long working day. This friend of yours is listing a group of very convincing reasons why you should not hesitate but take that chance straight away. He tells he would do it himself, but he is  currently low in funds. Everyone around the table agree with him and they are all excited for you, already. It sounds great, but there is this sense of contraction in your abdominal area, as if someone is mildly squeezing it. You are feeling confused. All he is telling you is so convincing that it is almost flawless. Your mind can not think of any reason, why you wouldn’t take it. What if you hesitate for long and someone else will take it instead of you? What if all the peers around that table would think you are a chicken…something? How is your response going to be? Will you go with your gut feeling and turn the offer or will you surrender to the peer pressure?

Alright, I added those time-sensitive elements to those two scenarios, in order to spice it up a bit. Please be my guest and take out those elements of deadlines out of those two stories. The dilemma will still probably be there, only to be experienced mildly, this time.

Is there no app that can decide for us?

Taking a deep breath and trusting your gut might take some courage, but  it wasn’t always this way. it used to be a daily practice for Homo sapiens sapiens for millennia, let alone many other species that entirely relied -and they still do- on their gut and instincts. Intuition and instinct kept humans safe for thousands of years, even though these two are different sources of intelligence. As we’ve evolved, we’ve become more sophisticated, learned to observe, collect data, rely on that data, repeat our learned responses, and later discredited our gut as ‘primitive’ or ‘unreliable’.

The more we observed others and learned from their mistakes -without precisely knowing the true dynamics behind those mistakes-, the more cautious we became. Those reference points became more sensitive. Then we hopelessly lost ourselves in the quest of ‘collecting more data’. A lot of data! That was our only true hope which we thought that substantial amounts of data would assist us greatly, so that we can meet our decisions easily, in our peace of mind. We started feeling not any true motivation to go with our gut feeling.

The more data we collected, the less decisive we became. Approximately sometime around there on the timeline, we learned to postpone our decisions. There are plenty of business strategists & consultants out there, who advise their clients to postpone their decisions as long as they can, until they have enough data(!) to lean on. Does it even exist, to collect ‘enough data’, at any time?

There is another element in this equation

We like to see ourselves as objective, smart and logical beings, when it comes to making decisions. Our brains use logic quite intensively during the decision making process, but also involve emotions in it. Many of us are not aware of it, but it is very difficult to escape the fact that we’re all prone to biases. We mostly take our emotions heavily into consideration while coming to a conclusion.

According to the book “Discovering Psychology” by Don Hockenbury and Sandra E. Hockenbury, an emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioral or expressive response.(1)

Have you ever felt your stomach swing & twist from anxiety? Have your palms ever started to sweat all of a sudden, because of worrying? If you are familiar with such situations then you must have already realized that emotions also cause strong physiological and physical reactions.

This is the point where you, dear reader, take the lead and ask me the following question: “Hold on! Did you just mention the stomach as an example of a physical reaction, triggered by an emotion? I thought gut feelings we mostly feel, are in that area. How can we be sure which one we are dealing with?”

Let’s get clarity and the discernment

You have the very right to ask this question, and my hint for you would be so: “Emotional reactions are mostly about the fear of repeating past experiences, and they have some ‘panicky’ tone in it. Gut feeling, however, radiates a certainty in itself, and focuses solely on the current situation. It has a self-assuring tone in it. Its certainty is not based on any data nor does it rely on any logical thinking. It simply knows. It knows it, as if it connected to a certain network of… universal wisdom.

Trusting your gut feeling is different than constantly listening to your self-doubts. It is also different than your instinct, which is described in Collins Dictionary as “The natural tendency that a person or animal has to behave or react in a particular way.” Instincts are mostly ‘hard-coded’ in your DNA. Intuition or that gut feeling is more dynamic. It varies according to circumstances.

There surely is some serious amount of confusion regarding the terminology out there on the web. Some people differentiate gut feeling from intuition, but I see them as very closely cooperating team mates.

What if you ask an old friend for help?

Well-trained and sincerely trusted gut feeling can give us such signals & messages, that mountains of data can not!

Algorithms that are generated by AI can give you the best possibility / probability calculations, but not that ‘unlikely possible option’, that may just come true.

Having a razor-sharp intuition and interpreting your gut reactions accurately might not happen overnight. Similar to almost everything in life, it takes practice. How about starting small?

How to include your gut feeling as a tool in your life?

Here, it can be your road map on your quest of developing a closer relationship with your gut reactions & intuition:

• When it is time for a fast decision -no time for data research- and when the stakes are low, see it as an opportunity to train yourself. Improve your communication with your gut.
• Pay attention to your initial thought before the analytical mind -and then emotions, and then references of past experiences and similar others- kicks in. Your first thought would provide you the clearest picture. It takes awareness to pay attention to it, therefore ‘practice it!’
• Now you know how to differentiate gut reaction from emotions, instincts etc. Pay deeper attention to all of those to become more accurate of knowing ‘which one is which’.
• Take it a step further: Create situations that you will need to rely on your intuition & gut feeling. Don’t miss those chances. Add some feeling of curiosity into it, and turn it into a game. A game, for which you may even keep a score card, displaying the accuracy of your recent gut reactions. 🙂

Important Note:

Please don’t forget it: You don’t need to go for an “all or nothing’ approach! if there’s enough time, if the circumstances require you to collect more data, and if the stakes are too high, you may decide to come to a logical & analytical conclusion, after your careful & longer consideration. Just feel free to take a ‘blend of the best of two worlds’.

Kıvanç Öroglu

Healer & Transformative coach

Illustration: <a href=’https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/people’>People vector created by pch.vector – www.freepik.com</a>

(1) Hockenbury, D. and Hockenbury, S.E. (2007). Discovering Psychology. New York: Worth Publishers.

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Procrastination is never ONLY procrastination!

Since ‘Procrastination’ is an act that we publicly damn and try to stay away from it -because it is an undesirable state-, let’s focus to the ‘desired action’ at the other end of the spectrum: Let’s focus on the ideal scenarios of ‘productivity‘, ‘efficiency‘ or being a ‘human-machine of delivering on time’. Does it sound more exciting now?

What is truly expected from us in our daily lives?

Getting things done! Is that really all about that?

Yes, we are all taught, educated & trained for delivering according to this one globally accepted purpose: Getting things done, on time, and in an acceptable quality level as an output. At school, within our families or at work place…we were mostly evaluated according to these criteria. This is a no brainier for everyone, right?

The formula is simple: Be efficient! What does that mean? Get as many things done, during a given period of time, as possible.

After you perform these tasks enough number of times smoothly and consistently, get to the next stage: Increase the number of items on your task list, close & finalize them successfully, within the same period of time!

It sounds like a very familiar, productivity and efficiency oriented setup. It fits into 21. Century slogans, perfectly. There are no surprises, so far There are even some ‘celebrity endorsement quotes’ of this idea, which are frequently circulated. Two examples of them would be:

Pablo Picasso once said: “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”

When an artist who answered his calling at a very early age in life says so, it sounds just so right.

You may delay, but time will not.
Benjamin Franklin

A statesman who influences millions of lives daily with his every decision may naturally have a serious sense of urgency regarding his scheduled tasks, as well as the emergency situations. ‘Average Joe-s & plain Jane-s’ have a different perception of time, when it comes to performing daily tasks.

Anatomy of a day that was previously dedicated to complete certain tasks

We all know the common symptoms of those times when we start to repeat certain patterns: It is that day of the week that you had previously planned to complete a certain important -possibly long overdue- task. It is that time of that particular day when we intend to start performing that overdue task. But, hold on! We -all of a sudden- start feeling very energetic, and decide to do a minor task, before starting the ‘major one’. We complete it quickly, but we start swapping from one physical task to another: Cleaning, cooking, washing the dishes, doing laundry, cutting grass, de-cluttering our drawers and shelves…you name it, we all do it! Until that day we all thought we disliked those tasks & errands, but this time it feels different! At this time, they play the role of perfect opportunities to prevent you from doing ‘that other major task’.

Some of us are more aware of such situations -about what is really going on in our minds- than the rest of us. Even those lucky ones happen to notice this pattern usually a bit late, during the last hours of our awake time. At that stage we simply face the bitter fact: Just another day has passed by, and we successfully haven’t done ‘that other thing’, once again. An optimist’s first response could be as follows:

“It is OK, tomorrow is another day. I can do that tomorrow, easily, the first thing in the morning.”

Just to our sincere surprise, the very next day starts and soon comes to an end, without ‘that other thing’ being completed. When enough number of such days & nights are repeated, we start to label ourselves in certain ways.

All excuses & labels in all wrong places

“I know that I am lazy. Mum always told me I was so!”; “I will never have enough discipline to succeed in life. Dad was right about that.”; “I am too much into my entertainment. I don’t have what it takes to have a structure in life.”

Those three would easily be on the ‘TOP 10 SELF BLAMING THOUGHTS of ALL TIME‘, globally! Some of us are a lot harsher and more brutal, when it comes to self-bashing. Please wait for a moment before punching yourself mercilessly. The reason of your procrastination might not be what you thought it was. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Yes, when it comes to understanding the deeply underlying reasons for your procrastination, those self judging labels are nothing else, but the cover of a book. A surface. An outer layer. It is, whatever you may want to call that ‘make-up layer’.

We all want to make certain changes in life, and changing that habit f procrastinating, for example. When does the true change happen in life? What is the formula of bringing that change into life?

Your subconscious mind is hiding a secret

There’s possibly no other & more diplomatic way to say this: You subconscious mind has got a VERY STRONG REASON, for you NOT performing that very action. You’ve been naively interpreting this situation as ‘laziness’ or ‘procrastination’, but the reality lies elsewhere: It lies somewhere deep deep inside you.

The reason might be an emotional past trauma, a misperception you’ve had when you were a child, a simple -but mostly not accurate- conclusion of your subconscious mind. In the language of the subconscious mind, every cause-effect relation is simple, plain, and sometimes even without common sense. You can not blame your subconscious mind for that. It is simply what it is. Your subconscious has  its own reasoning, its own hierarchy, and its own measures for self protection.

It wants nothing else, but the best for you, in its own way. If your subconscious has somehow associated ‘that action’ with ‘danger’, ‘unsafety’, ‘potential harm’ or something similar, you absolutely stand NO CHANCE to bulldoze this situation by merely relying on your willpower.

Additional perspective: Your willpower is a finite source! You wouldn’t want to spend & deplete it, just to finally complete all your daily tasks on your list. Use your willpower wisely!

OK, let’s get back to the secret(s) of our subconscious.

Don’t muscle up! It won’t get you anywhere.

Showing your subconscious mind who the boss is -by brutal power- is almost never a good idea. You can cause deeper ‘fragmentation’ by doing so. Very basically, you will force causing a situation that there will be now ‘two of you, who will have severely different opinions & reasoning about that very matter’.

Your subconscious mind may seem to stand back, as your first impression, but it will develop just another strategy to make sure you WILL skip ‘that action’! If you insist on extending this chess game between you two, your subconscious may manifest a physical illness or a similar temporarily disabling situation. And if you still don’t get the message, things will possibly get more serious.

Let’s make peace

There are better ways to settle this. First things first: Talk to your subconscious mind, in the language of subconscious mind!

You can ask the help of any licensed healing practitioner of many healing modalities, to be the translator between you and your subconscious. Only then, convincing your subconscious for your mutual best & highest good, re-programming your believes & programs, upgrading your ‘human software’ would be much smoother.

Alternatively, you may put yourself in a meditative state, calm your mind, slow down your pulse, and ask yourself the following question:

‘What is absolutely the worst thing that can happen to me, if I start and complete ‘that famous action’?

Be patient. Repeat that question, as many times as it is relevant to…until you get the real reason lying underneath. It is just like many other things. Practice makes it perfect. Don’t give up at the early stages, when the first answers you receive are lame, cheesy or clearly made up. Dive deeper. Sooner or later, your subconscious mind will get tired of this, it will get emotional and impulsive. And at one of those moments -being emotionally very agitated-, it will tell you the truth!

Can you now feel that lightness?

After this point, it is absolutely up to you. You may agree with your subconscious or you may find that reasoning ridiculous, and may decide to over-write it. Please be gentle with yourself. You may also find the common ground. Regardless of the outcome, going through this simple exercise would save you countless hours of negative self-talk, feeling shame, and unconscious self-punishing.

Now, go finish ‘that very famous task‘ that you’ve been procrastinating over for ages…or maybe simply…don’t!  🙂

Kıvanç Öroglu

Healer & Transformative Coach

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In a world that we are being taught to doubt ourselves – directly, by our caretakers, teachers and indirectly, by many pop-culture elements – beginning from early ages, it is a natural outcome that self-doubting became a part of our decision making process. When to listen to self-doubt and when not? According to our teachers: All the time! They even sold us the act of doubting ourselves as being ‘sure-footed‘ or ‘risk avoiding’, thus a ‘virtue‘!

And did they ever mention the risk of over-doubting yourselves? No, they most likely haven’t. This habit of over-doubting might lead to a serious mental health problem.

When should you listen to your self-doubt and when you shouldn’t?

The word ‘should’ might easily sound irritating to many, but it may help some of us pay more attention to the following sentence: Self-doubt loving adults often try to save themselves -and others- from falling into ‘disastrous situations’…like a wrong career choice…or a wrong choice for a romantic partner. Making wrong choices in any of those mentioned cases is no fun by any means! But, what about the growth that may take place, because of those experiences?

Please keep in mind: Staying in our very strictly described comfort zones & NOT making those choices, can make us feel stuck in life. When we feel so, we usually can not understand the reason and ask ourselves that same question, over and over again. “Why do I feel stuck in my life?” When you can not figure out why you created this experience (of feeling stuck) in your life, you may start getting headaches. And the energy that is meant to flow in & around all your body -through your energy centers or ‘chakras‘- will get more stuck.

Short summary: Continuously self-doubting may lead to inaction in life, which possibly may lead to feeling stuck in life!

There are several of those inner voices

Not all second thoughts are negative. Some of them may save us from serious trouble.

It may be difficult for many of us to distinguish between self-doubt that mostly holds us back from success / creativity / growth, and the inner voice or that gut feeling, which could actually help you avoid a disaster.

As an intuitive and a healer, let me tell you the difference: It’s about the ‘vibration‘ of that inner voice.

Inner voices according to their vocalizers

Self-doubting is closely related to one of the basic human emotions: Fear! In this case, it is mostly about the fear of failure. And our Ego absolutely hates the risk of failure. When ego senses any slightest risk of failure, it uses ‘self-doubting’ as a tool to scare us, so that we would immediately give up that risky-looking action.

If we don’t immediately give up, Ego increases its pitch, and it chooses a harsher vocabulary to make us stop considering that risky action. And what if we still don’t give up? A stronger voice of ‘self-doubt’ will echo in our heads. I assume that you’ve got the picture. The characteristics of this inner voice (Ego) here are: Nervous, anxious, unsure, loud and repetitive.

The characteristics of the other inner voice (higher-self) that wants to save us from trouble would be: Calm, certain, loving, confident, peaceful, wise and non-repetitive!

It doesn’t necessarily mean that the wise inner voice of our higher-self warns us only once. What it means is that, it surely doesn’t push you to change your mind, in a compulsive, fearful, and auto-repeating mode.

How to differentiate between the ego and our higher-selves?

My humble advice to anyone, who simply can not be sure of the source of their self-doubt, would be simple but very efficient: Sit down, close your eyes, take a few slow, but deep breathes in & out (if you have a regular meditation practice you can also do that), and focus your attention to the source of that self-doubting voice. How does it vibrate? Is it peaceful? Is it somewhat anxious? Is it repeating itself non-stop? Is fear of failure the focal point of this inner voice?

With some practice, you will slowly, but surely develop a fine understanding about such situations. And after attaining that awareness, perhaps you may find yourself thinking of creative solutions instead of vocalizing the usual self-doubt. You may prefer to act boldly instead of focusing on why you can’t do it.

Sometimes what you just need to do is taking risk, which may open the door for you to all new possibilities.

I encourage you to challenge your self-doubt, mildly & wisely.

Kıvanç Öroglu

Healer & Transformative Coach

IMAGE:

Photo by Media Lab from FreeImages

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Since the infamous pandemic and all the related stories started dominating all headlines, we have possibly read many articles, including the term ‘unprecedented times’ somewhere in it. Most people agree that we are living in such times, some have their objections. Let’s agree that the last 12 weeks or so, were remarkably different than the same period of 2019, to say the least. How about our professions, in particular? Did we find ourselves providing more of transformative coaching & healing through these unprecedented times?

How was it before? In which ways are we challenged?

We have been living our fast paced, transaction based and result oriented lives, until one state after another started to impose the lock-down measures. It was a new situation for the vast majority of us. We didn’t have any similar reference points to compare it with. It was ‘unprecedented’. How did we cope with this new reality, when most of us had to stay at home? Many people responded by ‘getting back to the basics’. They spent more ‘quality time’ with their loved ones. The life itself and its tempo slowed down. At least, in the perception of our minds.

Some of us started reading more books. Some, decided to get really creative and they started preparing their own homemade recipes for any sort of food imaginable. Others have focusied on learning a new language, through these home-stay weeks & months. However, there was a constant question circulating the minds of people: “When will the ‘Normalization’ start?”

How did the ecosystem of coaches & healers respond to it?

How does this term of ‘unprecedented times’ translate into our world of coaching and healing industry? Surely, almost every coach and healer went ‘online’, not having any other true options left for them. Many of us focused on ‘group coaching sessions’. Group meditations became even more popular and common. Coaches and even worldwide known ‘personal brands’ started sharing a lot of free content, in incomparable amounts prior to the lock-down period. Ok, those happened to be the -relatively- new practices in medium of coaching, technology, diversification and marketing. How about the ‘content’? What did the coaching / healing clients demand differently, during the sessions?

In two major directions: 1) New strategies to generate more money & additional streams of income. 2) New tools for having truly deep insights, rediscovering their true identity, the meaning of their lives, and their life purpose.

Needless to say, those 2 group of people need to be approached differently. My clientele is falling into the second group of people, heavily.

Is there only one right way to respond to it?

‘Unprecedented times’ already influenced so many aspects of our lives, in so many unexpected ways. What about people’s deep and sincere thoughts about themselves? And how about the coaching / healing questions that we ask our clients? Could transformative coaching & healing industry adjust its tools through these unprecedented times?

What I set my focus on during these times was helping people to face and understand their own deepest truth. Existential truth. The truth related to their creation, purpose, mission and values.

Focusing on ‘values’, ‘mission’ and ‘life purpose’ during those coaching sessions might seem -at least to some of us- as, ‘wasting precious coaching time’. This perception is an alarm bell, for remarkably many people. Those many people perceive that situation of focusing on values, life purpose etc., as ‘postponing achievement date of the future results’… Those ‘promised lands’ of measurable results.

What are we usually expected to do according to the values of the mainstream society? To immediately focus on the goal of ‘getting that promotion’, ‘impress the board of directors’ or ‘earn those 7-figures per year’. In most of the cases, those measurable goals are mentioned during the very first coaching session with a new coaching client. Nobody seems to be in favor of losing that ‘very precious time’! “Paving the road to success should clearly be the focus during every minute of that session! Isn’t that common sense for everyone?” Ehhm, perhaps it was so…until…?

How about aligning those measurable goals with the notions of ‘personal values’, ‘meaning of life’ according to every individual, and the person’s ‘life purpose’? Immediate response to this in the past could be as the following one: “No, why do so? How can they possibly help to achieve those goals? Back to the strategy and tactics, please.”

It may very likely surprise many coaching clients to realize their emotional state, but only in later months: ‘Achieving the goal’ actually didn’t elevate their levels of happiness, joy, inner peace, an overall sense of well-being, for a long term. They are back in that ‘success craving mode’. Surprise surprise!

Here it starts getting tricky

Rather than strictly holding on to those practical coaching tools and following them with a precise order… in a road map-like fashion… how about letting those worries go and allow ourselves be guided with our own inner wisdom & intuition? No, I am not mad, and no, I haven’t watched too many of those Star Wars episodes. “May ‘the Force’ be with us all” 🙂

Our inner wisdom wants us to become the best and the most ‘compatible version’ of ourselves, within our life purpose, soul contract… whatever you would like to call it.

It is so common and so humane that our logical / analytical mind step in, right at this stage, and starts censoring any other inputs or influences, which it labels as, ‘vague’, woo woo’, ‘adventurous’, ‘irresponsible’, or ‘not safe enough’.

As a matter of fact, I highly recommend you to underline the sentence above, with a thick red marker, and read it out loud, preferably 3 or 4 times! Only by doing so, this truth about the mechanics of our brains may begin  to sink in. 🙂 Yes, even though it may seem very simple and basic to many people, it usually takes more time to fully accept and comprehend it.

Somebody is behaving a little inflexibly here

The cautious mind (please read it as the subconscious mind + the ‘Ego’, as a package here) has a religiously strong belief: “When it comes to evaluating situations and making decisions, no external person or no other consciousness (including the other internal consciousness centers) can know the needs of ‘the self’ better than I can!

Because of the absolutism, it is a true challenge to calm down this part of the mind and get yourself open up to other new possibilities; be it a new perspective, approach or even a new light projected on current matters.

Here comes the point: Our minds almost always approve ONLY the safe options! The reasonable choices, containing familiar elements. Anything unknown is considered unsafe, therefore a huge “No” would be the immediate answer to them. And please trust me: Every mind has this unlimited access to a huge database of reference events -mostly from our past-, full of failure, humiliation, ridicule, emotional wounds or traumas. Our minds (hijacked by the subconscious) have very creative ways of forecasting many ‘worst case scenarios’. This sounds to me like a very ‘safe, but limiting’ loop of living our lives. How does it sound to you?

Let’s begin putting things in order

If we first heal & deal with the elements of ‘fear’ or ‘worrying’, ONLY THEN our minds can be convinced, thus reprogrammed to think, respond and act differently. When constantly existing stress and pressure in our lives are minimized, then we perhaps may start remembering what we already innately know how to: Activating our creative and expansive energy!

Only after this very point it will start making more ‘sense’, talking about goals, targets, desired achievements and so on. Only after this healing process, those brilliant tactics, coaching tools and long term strategies will start becoming increasingly effective & applicable, in client’s life.

Perhaps after these adjustments, our clients may start getting closer to a point, where everything starts flowing relatively easily & effortlessly. It is simply another state of mind: ‘Being in the flow‘! This one is the legendary ‘flow state’. This is ‘the state of being’, which almost all professionals from all walks of life put all their effort & focus to reach it and stay there, as long as they can.

Are you not sure what ‘being in flow‘ means, from the psychology perspective? Positivepsychology.com describes it as follows:

Psychological Flow captures the positive mental state of being completely absorbed, focused, and involved in your activities at a certain point in time, as well as deriving enjoyment from being engaged in that activity.

‘Being in flow‘ (colloquially, being in the zone) is NOT a myth! It is achievable. I have complete faith that people may be encouraged & guided on this journey, thus they can start believing they can get to that state.

It is time to start living our lives in an ‘Unprecedented Way’

If this is a journey, every step on the way is valuable. As an example of one of the earlier steps, I highly recommend everyone to give themselves the gift of truly listening to themselves and asking a few very good questions: “What does truly make me happy?”, “What does truly matter to me in life?”, “Is there any true meaning in how I am currently living my life?”, and similar ones to those.

Just like the character ‘Jackson Maine’ (Bradley Cooper) sings in his song “Maybe It’s Time”, in the movie of “A Star is Born” from 2018:

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
It takes a lot to change a (wo)man
Hell, it takes a lot to try
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die

Maybe, it’s time to start living our lives in ‘Unprecedented Ways’.

Kıvanç Öroglu

Transformative coach & Healer

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Two different forms of change (growth), as we experience them

When do we truly change in life? Is frequently repeated saying “People don’t change” true? Not entirely.

One way that we do change is when our energy field is in the same frequency range, thus compatible with the elements of the desired altered state. Is the explanation too technical? Let’s try another one.

Change truly happens, when our body, mind & spirit fully accept the components of that new perception, decision or action, which will drive the change.

This is surely not the only way how change takes place. This one is the pleasant path leading to change. When our mind, body & spirit are aligned, we even demand the change. So, how does change take place in this smooth form?

Practicing and attaining certain qualities & virtues make it possible: Acceptance, empathy, awareness, perspective, courage and similar ones… This type of change is also known as Satori.

Satori: passion of the awakened

Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith, the founder of the Agape International Spiritual Centre in Los Angeles, talks about two different paths leading to change, thus leading to life growth.

Satori is growth by awakening. They are insights that happen suddenly and change you forever. They can happen anywhere – while you’re in nature, listening to music, looking at art, or in a conversation.

Once you’ve had a Satori moment (think of that “ah-ha!” we’ve all felt when something just clicks), the stuff that holds you back is left in the dust. You’ve levelled up and can operate on a whole new plane.

In such an expansive and flow-like state, change takes place naturally.

Change doesn’t always come easy

When do we truly decide to change in life? That moment of decision might happen when you are swimming in the ocean under the moon light in a bliss state. It may also happen in one of those ‘hitting the bottom hard’ situations.

Can you relate to the following analogy, below?

When change needs to take place, it stands in front of your door and rings the bell patiently , but so only for a while. When unanswered, it starts knocking at the door with its fist. If still no response, then it kicks the door, louder and louder…until… I guess you already got the picture. This type of change also may -and most likely will- lead to growth, but in a different way. And surely, through a different process. This one is called ‘Kensho‘.

Souls crave and demand change as a catalyst, and thus desire to grow, without a doubt. They have a different level of consciousness, wisdom and perspective, than we -our temporal consciousness- have. Our higher selves are interested in the gains of changing and growing, NOT in the details, such as how much we will have to suffer to get there.

Do we really believe in “No Pain No Gain?”

Again, Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith has beautifully described this concept of Kensho:

Kensho is growth by pain. Ultimately, it is the universe giving you tough love. Bottom line: you go through some kind of pain or difficulty which you learn different ways to feel, think, and be. It is like a tectonic shift, you can feel it happening, and mapped over time, it’s clear that your world has changed.

In retrospect, you might even view these events as positive forces that pushed you to challenge beliefs and systems that were holding you back in ways you hadn’t realized. Dr. Beckwith suggests that Kensho is our souls’ way of calling on us to grow.

Neither of these concepts are innately ‘good’ or ‘bad’. They simply represent two different ways as things unfold, in our souls’ quest of reaching its goal: Change & Growth.

It seriously – and perhaps surprisingly – doesn’t matter that much to our souls, how change & growth takes place. How about us, with our 3rd density level of consciousness? It matters a lot to us, and for a good reason.

Anticipated pain: A solid roadblock

Our brains are  hard coded with many programs, to make us run away from danger or pain, so that we survive. And only when the dangerous situation passes by, we start chasing all short term pleasures, once again.

Certain parts of our brains focus only on the present moment and ask one question:

“Is there a risk of having pain in this present moment or not?”

That is the burning question for the early developed parts of our brains.

As a result of this evolutionary component , instant gratification is such a fundamental part of our being. We crave it, we desire it, we immediately feel well after receiving it.

Long term achievements are not that interesting for us, human beings, except our analytical minds.

Please put a mark on previous sentence. It will play a key role to demystify the chemistry of change, later.

Who is in charge of deciding for change?

People tend to NOT see certain things in life, such as limiting believes, programs, learned powerlessness, repeating collective patterns etc. They stay unaware of them, if noticing them in and of itself is painful enough. The responsible character for this ‘overlooking or skipping action’ is no other than our all time best friend, the Subconscious Mind.

The subconscious mind reads the situation as this:

“Change is terrible, it’s a huge risk, an unacceptable situation in itself, and it can mean to jeopardize my life”.

It almost always prefers to keep the Status-quo, even if keeping everything as it is could be more detrimental for the body, mind & the spirit, in the long term.

One great way to avoid change, is Procrastination! One of our all-time favorites. And so many people have been thinking all this time that they were simply so…lazy.  🙂

Calculating risks, minimizing possible future damage and constantly re-evaluating scenarios, fall under the field of expertise of our analytical minds. That would be the prefrontal cortex. But, what if that smart & high IQ compartment of our brain is not even aware of the true situation?

Yes, it may be so, because the subconscious mind loves to keep stuff hidden! It hides them under many many layers of clutter.

Deep tactics of the subconscious mind…but for which purpose?

There are several tactics for hiding a fact, a memory…or simply any data: We may just forget about them. We may also simply lose them.

One major reason that subconscious mind hides the data, is that it is deeply scared of having anything to do with pain! Recalling an old file; an embarrassing memory, a traumatic situation or even a past life drama etc. could be VERY painful!

An even more convincing reason why people (their subconscious minds) don’t see things (skip them on purpose) as they are, is closely related to our initial question: Seeing things as they are could mean having to make some sort of CHANGE, which could be painful to do.

When do we truly change in life? Change starts to happen, the moment our subconscious mind starts believing that changing won’t be painful!

Change without experiencing pain?

When it comes to the assessment of pain, the subconscious mind believes that almost ANY CHANGE is / will be painful. A little less or a little more, but painful.

This is one of the most fundamental reasons why people don’t live their lives fully aware! This is one big reason why they subconsciously choose to stay unaware of their day-to-day reality.

It may be why they keep themselves stuck in an illusion in their lives. Alternatively they lock themselves up in their self-created mental prison cell, and throw the keys out of the window.

Change or not to change?

Please don’t get me wrong. Even the subconscious mind can decide for change. This ‘choice’ usually happens when not changing and resisting it becomes even more painful, compared to various scenarios of changing.

This type of change will take place fast! Everything related to it will be the ‘new norm’ for some time, until another ‘not changing is more painful‘ situation. A situation, when cost of holding on to Status Quo will simply be too high and unsustainable.

We are more than our subconscious minds

Did you ever realize that you are an infinite being with infinite consciousness, in your true essence? We all deserve to change & grow through Satori. The notion of changing and growing through awakening, receiving powerful insights, having fascinating A-Ha moments, may sound too intellectual to our subconscious minds. What we may choose to do, could be to convince our concerned & fearful friend, in a step by step approach.

Please make it a daily habit to ask this following question to yourself:

“What is absolutely the worst thing that could happen to me, because of this change?”

After receiving each answer, repeat your question: “And what is the worst thing that could happen after that, if so and so happens?”

Please repeat asking this question to yourself until you run out of all the shallow answers (excuses). Sooner or later, the true answer will be revealed.

After this marathon of Q&A, you will perhaps notice that all previously stated reasons as excuses to resist the change, were simply part of the mis-perception of the subconscious: An illusion!

Pure awareness helps us change (grow) smoothly

When do we truly change in life? Changing will become smooth & easy after we repeat this Q&A process enough number of times, and realize what is true and what is an illusion.

After enough repetitions, even the subconscious mind will start getting convinced about the benefits of changing, thus growing. Once it is convinced enough, locking itself up in a mental prison cell and throwing the keys out of the window, will be a thing of the past.

Kıvanç Öroglu

Transformative Coach & Healer

Thank you for reading! Subscribe to receive my articles that can inspire you to start walking on your own healing journey.

If one of the stories or instances in the article resonates with you, please share your story with me. I am always inspired with great stories that are genuine and heart centered.

PS:

This article above reflects my experience based on working as a healer with many people. People, who were seeking some answers in their lives, and each of them was on a different spot on their personal journeys. Even today, these situations continue to be my day-to-day experience with these beautiful souls. No specific details are mentioned in the article.

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Images & citation:

Image: The Satir Change Model

The Satir Change Model is a five-stage model (see graph) that describes the effects each stage of the change has on feelings, thinking, performance, and physiology. It was developed by Virginia Satir.

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