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May 30, 2005
2. Kitchen Remodeling
. Creating Your Life
2. Kitchen Remodeling and 12-Year Cycles
Because a couple of bloggers I know are going through big changes, I thought it a good time to get more deeply into natural cycles and how to take advantage of them.
One of the things that the Power of Positive Thinking crowd often fails to mention is that whenever you try to make a big change in your life, your life can sometimes enter a stage where it seems everything is falling apart. When you want to take your airplane to a new altitude, put on your seatbelt because you may experience some turbulence on the way up.
I liken making a major change in yourself or your life to kitchen remodeling.
You have your old kitchen. You are content with it out of sheer habit until something happens to offer you a vision of a new kitchen. The new vision has to be stronger than the current reality to get you to act.
Unfortunately, the transition to the new vision or goal is not immediate. There is a dismantling period where your kitchen must be removed and you have a gutted kitchen.
A gutted kitchen is when times are hard, and there is always danger, if the new vision hasn't fully taken hold, where a person goes back to the old kitchen rather than move forward into the new kitchen.
This is basically what happens whenever you set a vision or goal and work to make it happen. The key again is that whatever goal you set, you must hold it strongly in mind, inspire yourself with it continually, and sustain the vision so that when times get rough, because your old anchor points get pulled up to make room for the new vision, you have the energy to carry through to completion.
The mind is easily distracted. Therefore, one has to work hard to keep the mind focused and discpilined. This is why people work with positive statements and affirmations.
When I want to make a change, I use the "15 Times Exercise." I get a notepad, and every morning before I begin my day, I write a positive, changing statement 15 times. Currently, because my work has me sitting in front of a computer so much, I am writing, "I delight in physical activity and healthy exercise."
I know that "delight in" phrase sounds funny, but there are several rules about the 15 times exercise that you must apply if it's going to work:
- Write every day.
- Use the first person present verb form, like "I am..."
- Be positive. Say what you are doing, not what you are not wanting to do.
- Use active, striking language.
- VISUALIZE and FEEL the statement as if it were a reality.
Remember IMAGINATION X VIVIDNESS = REALITY.
When you do this exercise EVERY DAY for months, you will notice a change take hold in your consciousness.
But beware. Before that happens, SOMETHING will happen to try to interrupt your efforts. SOMETHING will try to get you to go back to your old habits. When it comes, DON'T LET IT GET TO YOU.
You will also notice that remodeling your consciousness is like remodeling your kitchen. When you hold a new vision, everything in you that contradicts that vision will come up. You will have to look at it and decide to either a) let it go, or b) take it back and not change.
A few weeks ago after 30 years I had to give up caffeine in all forms. No coffee, tea, cokes. Because I did not want to be the kind of person anymore who was attached to caffeine, so I began writing, "I love being caffeine-free." When I gave up daily tea and coke drinking, I held to that vision, even through the headaches and body changes and low energy days. People tried to buy me those drinks. I hung in there. Now two weeks later, my body is beginning to feel better than ever with more energy and more restful sleep.
12-Year Cycles
Not only can you CHOOSE to go through changes, it appears that about every 12 years it's part of a natural cycle for life to PUT you through changes.
Just before my 12th birthday, my family moved from Kansas to California. Around my 24th birthday I published my first magazine article, which got me out of wanting to be a computer programmer and become a writer instead. That led to my transfering to a university and getting a B.A. in English.
Around my 36th birthday, I moved from California to Minnesota, got married, got divorced, moved back to California with nothing, ready to rebuild my life, all within six months. Around my 48th birthday, I gave up being a consultant for 12 years and took a corporate job in a whole new field learning incredible things and traveling more in a single year than my entire life before.
12-year cycles seem to be associated with larger visions of life. At the end of a 12-year cycle, you experience a decaying of that vision. You can feel empty or lost. Anchorless. A Dark Night of the Soul. An empty, gutted kitchen.
This is the time to rest and wait and pay attention. Some new vision is on its way, some new cycle of opportunity that will present you with the opportunity of moving up, upgrading your kitchen, improving your consciousness.
Some people don't take the step and try to hold on to the past, to the decaying cycle. This attachment will either cause you pain, because you are holding on to something that is going to die, or it will stagnate you by keeping you from growing.
12-year cycles are not set in stone. Sometimes a cycle lasts 13 years. Some people begin one later or earlier. For example, some people begin their cycles at 2 years of age so that their dates are 14, 26, 38, 50, etc.
Also, ANYTHING you start will generate a 12-year cycle. So if 11 years ago you started a business, right about now the vision that started your business is decaying, and you will need to catch and actively implement the next vision to keep it going.
If you want to look at some of your 12-year cycles, you can take a major event in your life and count back or forward 12 years to see another event on that track of cycles.
I hope this makes enough sense, and is not presumed to be astrological. It's not. If you are a student of inductive reasoning, then look to your examples and see if it bears out.
Coming soon: 3. Creating Your Life.
*** You can defy gavity. The trick is to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
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Posted by witnit at May 30, 2005 10:15 AM
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