So what’s the deal?  Why this intense focus on patterns bordering on obsessive compulsive disorder? (okay, I’ve crossed the border into Crazy Town, but it’s only because I’m fanatical about changing your life)

Have you ever noticed that when you try to change something, anything in your life, that you have to work really hard to hold onto that change.

As you attempt to modify one part of your life, everything else seems to come unglued, unhinged, and generally sucky.  Your life starts to exert a fierce resistance to whatever you want to change.  The more you force it, the more resistance you feel.  It’s almost as if your life was exerting energy to return you to your previous negative state. (the state where I, for example, used to eat a box of cookies before dinner every night)

You have to push and push and push for even a small change. Applying a counter resistance until you either give up, or the stars align, the angels sing, and you finally topple with exhaustion into a new routine that mostly, kind of, sort of, supports your dreams and goals.  Of course, to really reach a blazing success, you have to keep stoking and blowing on the fire. (and probably get a little light headed from all the damn huffing and puffing)

A big problem with this method is that you expend a huge amount of energy to constantly fight with your old patterns or habits. You have to build up momentum with laser like focus day after day after day.

It’s just like trying to make a plaid background by randomly drawing lines with crayons. You have to put layer on top of layer on top of layer.  It’s really messy.  It leaves lots of crayon crumbs all over the place. Your crayons end up being these little stumpy things that are extremely hard to hold on to, or do much else with besides eat them. (if you are still a 3 year old, that is) And the result is something very scary looking or very brown looking, but rarely a stunning example of Plaid.

To make things worse, if you don’t make it over the HUGE hurdle, then you end up back where you started. Only now, you are completely drained of vital energy, depressed by your lack of progress, and have little to no interest in changing anything else, ever again. Plus it takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R. (ie, You throw away the nasty un-plaid picture and your devastated box of crayons, and vow to never again attempt plaid pictures or even pictures with a row of stripes. Ugh!)

Now, don’t get me wrong, if this process has worked for you in the past and left you feeling empowered to charge forward, then I salute you. (no kidding, you completely totally rock and probably have the most awesome plaid pictures ever!) However, for the rest of us, lets look at an alternative.

What if, instead of using a sustained flow of high energy over months and months, you gave a short burst of intense action up front.

That means you DON’T change your pattern gradually.  Nope. Instead, you just suddenly throw it off the back of the bus. You disrupt the pattern completely in a very short time frame.

This alternative requires some chaotic energy to start.  And you might feel a bit unbalanced until a new pattern re-asserts itself.  But, once you stop the energy of the old negative pattern, you have carte blanch to easily and quickly create a new pattern. A pattern that will match your dreams.  A pattern that you can harness to reach your goals.

But… (yes, Virginia there is a Secret Clause) what happens if you disrupt the old pattern but don’t replace it with a new pattern that can balance all the energies of your life?

Then all those leftover, ghostly negative thoughts, feelings, and general bad vibrations will reassert themselves.  This will actually feed your unwanted tendencies, strengthen the energy of the negative pattern, and stop all progress toward your passionate goals. (Yikes, Bad News!)

There is light at the end of this tunnel though. (Because plaid can be original, fun, and beautiful) Because you are going to take the time to observe your current patterns.

You’re going to decide exactly what you WANT to change and what you are READY to change.

Then you’re going to prepare a new pattern that takes into account the areas of your life that you choose to change AND the areas of your life that will stabilize you during the transition. You are going to plan out your plaid background with a ruler, a pencil, an eraser, and a knowledge of both straight lines and the power of overlapping boxes.  (aaahhh, the light is starting to peek through!)

Yes, it will still take some energy and commitment before you can make the change.  But once you hit the green light, the energy of your new pattern will work for the change you want instead of against it. Your plaid won’t be perfect, but it’ll look a hell of a lot better than that previous mishmash and it’ll have far less uninteresting gooey brown.

So, welcome to ‘This Is Your Life’! (or This is the CHANGE of Your Life) Start picking your vantage point, ladies and gentleman because it’s going to be an awesome show.

PS – The lovely crayon photo above came from Matthew Clark Photography and Design on Flickr.

Passionate action can be an elusive beast.  You won’t find it in your goals, in your actions, or in your life until you discover it’s source… inside yourself.  Unfortunately, many people block the expression of their own passion because they are afraid that even if they find it, they’ll loose it in the next instant.  This fear slowly eats away at any motivation to fulfill their dreams by projecting the illusion of safety within the glass walls of a closed heart. You can feel the truth is out there, but you just can’t touch it.  Blocked from sadness and joy by the invisible walls of logic.

The only way out of this prison is through acceptance.  Acceptance that you are an irrational being.  You don’t need MORE control, you need MORE feeling. Hiding in a cloud of apathy doesn’t protect you from all the bad things in life, it damages your ability to find and feel passion and motivation toward your life and your goals. Whenever you live in fear from a possibly painful mistake, your world reflects your self-imposed limitations– Forcing you to fall deeper and deeper into apathy.  Distancing you from your friends and family.  Letting your dreams and hopes recede further and further from realization.

Take A Step Back

To find your passion again, you have to walk through the pain. You have to feel and accept it.  Your Muse has been screaming inside those glass walls and wants out.  The Muse wants to see the world, but can’t touch it.  It wants to play a game, but can’t roll the dice.  It wants to experience freedom, but it doesn’t even know what options are out there.  Break the walls, feel the pain. Don’t limit your life by avoiding a moment of sadness when joy is on the horizon.

Start Believing

The universe will supply as many opportunities as you need to break out your Muse and rediscover passionate action.  Unfortunately, many of these opportunities will seem painful, difficult, unsolvable.  If you lean deeper into apathy, the world will keep opening the path to passion but only if you walk through the fire.  First you must believe that there is something more on the other side.  Once you believe and ACT with the knowledge that you want and deserve passion in your life, the journey to your dreams can begin again. It is better to risk getting wet if it rains on your parade than to skip the parade all together.

Don’t Bet Everything on a Whim

Unfortunately, you may have tried to break the Muse out of it’s glass walls before.  And once the Muse was out, it ran amok.  It tore holes in your life.  It left your toys on the floor, possibly shattered into 1000 pieces.  It left you overcome by emotional turmoil that took lots of time (and possibly therapy) to resolve.  You don’t want to make that mistake again.

So don’t.  Don’t let out the Muse and then abandon her to whatever strikes her fancy. Remember, the Muse is creative but erratic.  The Muse helps you understand your dreams, and develop the goals that lead to passionate actions.  But the Muse only rules over chaos.  It accepts everything except the need to take purposeful, meaningful actions.  You must let the analytical Daemon sort through the chaos and then make a choice to change.  Giving all your power to the creative but chaotic Muse is just as insane as giving it all to the demanding but logical Daemon. You can’t abuse the truth or wall up your creativity.

You must find balance in a world that doesn’t always make sense.

A Conduit of Power

Passionate action is one of the powers of life.  You can’t own passion, but you can use it. It flows through you and around you.  However, if you are afraid to use it, you throw it away.  Gather all the different pieces of your personality [whether you consider them as male/female (yinyang), or the Muse/Daemon/Voice/Heart/Observer (as I do)] and explore your options.  Sit in the center of a room full of doors and look for the choice that has the most passion, the most joy, the most excitement for you.

If you look for passion and expect it to show up, you will find it!

The Key

When you have chosen a door; chosen a goal that excites your mind, body, and soul, then it’s time to take a second look.  You’ll realize that the hall of doors is really a hall of mirrors.  The door to passion is inside of you. All you have to do is open your heart and choose.

To withhold the passion that lives in your heart from the world is to let it burn you from the inside out.  To share your passion is to set your path on fire.

Trust in your own journey and direct your passion into whatever goal you want.  Passion will incite your actions and light the way but you must define your life’s purpose, you must define the path.

Accept your Reality
Balance & Trust Your Own Choices
Act with Passion
And Live in the World that you Create

BREAK

How do you incite passionate action in your life? Which goals and dreams make you feel the most passionate? Share your ideas in the comment section!

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