Change is more than just digging a hole

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. Buckminster Fuller

Remember as a child at the beach how you would dig a hole in the sand near the water’s edge? Remember how you would get down to the waterline, dig out that wet, sloppy sand and weeds but the water would seep back in? You would keep digging the wet sand out but there was always more water coming in and refilling the hole.

The healing process can feel a lot like that! You have been dealing with old emotions, painful memories, childhood trauma for years, but it can feel like you are not getting anywhere. There always seems to be more pain or fear or shame seeping into your daily life. Permanent, positive change seems elusive.

Clearing painful energies is an essential aspect of healing change. We cannot ignore it, pretend it isn’t there, hope it goes away with time. We have to do the digging to ‘know what’s in us’, to expose shadows to the light, to remove the seaweed and rocks buried under the surface of our awareness.

However, if we don’t replace the old with something new and better, our psyche will find more of the familiar thoughts-emotions-sensations to refill the space we have just worked so hard to open up. Nature abhors a vacuum; our psychology always fills empty space. If we are not actively doing the  ‘replacing’ part of our change journey, our subconscious will go ahead and recreate the old patterns we don’t like but are used to, the old comfort zone.

Real change is positive growth, permanent shift into new and better. An improvement and an upgrade. It is not more of the same; it is adjusting, evolving, developing ourselves into places that won’t feel comfortable at first, because they are beyond the old comfort zones.

When we clear AND replace, we up-level our energetics. We build a new self that might take a while to get used to, but is freer, more spacious, more joyful.

So imagine the sandcastle you are going to build. What quality of sand are you going to fill the hole with and build your castle upon? Love, joy, gratitude? What do you want to create in your life that looks and feels better than the sludge you lived with before? 

Dream up your new, dig out what doesn’t serve and raise your castle into the sky.