Natural healing: Break a Worn-Out Pattern

Life seems so easy when we stick with the familiar. Eat the same breakfast, take the same route to work, hang out with the buds on the weekend, pull a few weeds in the garden. Now there's no criticism here for your choices. You may eat a fabulously healthy breakfast, thrive in your job, and hang with a fun-loving group of ultra-supportive friends. It's the sameness we're after.

There is a positive spin to repeating activities in a nearly-mindless flow of existence. Once we figure out how to do something and it works, we do it again. It's essential to human function, really. Think how tedious life would be if you had to re-learn how to take a shower and brush your teeth every morning! Insane!

And yet here's one of life's little puzzling paradoxes. The sameness that helps immensely one day can lead to our downfall the next. Living inside a worn-out pattern blinds us to clues that our actions need tweaking. We filter out comments, sensations, and visual cues that would normally get our attention.

The clues begin to show themselves...

* Spouse is somehow less animated.
* Boss seems pre-occupied.
* Pants feel tighter.
* Knee clicks funny walking upstairs.
* Aspirin bottle empty too quick.
* Tired. No energy. Why so tired?
* Boss complaining about the project I just turned in. Weird.
* Friends suggesting I take a vacation.
* This bagel just isn't doing it for me today. What I'd really like is some scrambled eggs.

All clues that it would be easy to brush off. You probably shouldn't. But you just might. Then before you know it, BAM. Something happens.

"Where did that come from?" you wonder. "I never even saw it coming."

Nope, you didn't. But there were clues all right. You simply filtered them out.

Now let's move to phase 2. Whatever was going to happen has just happened. Divorced, fired, or sick, based on the cues we've listed above. The average person's famous last words? "This isn't going to change a thing!"

Several years ago, an elected official from my state was diagnosed with cancer. "This isn't going to affect my service in the least," she said. "It's going to be business as usual."

"Bummer for her," I thought. If there's any cue a person really shouldn't overlook it's a cancer diagnosis. Acquiring a life-threatening disease generally means that "business as usual" hasn't been working. Within the year, our elected official had succumbed to her illness. Obviously, she'd missed the cues.

So now something has happened. At this juncture, one of the most fundamental principles of natural healing says...

"This is a big clue!"

What to do? Easy. Explore your life. Take some time off. Break the pattern. Don't arbitrarily change everything just for the sake of changing it. (In fact, making major life changes in the midst of a shocking crisis can be a really bad idea.) But do evaluate. Here's what I suggest:

* Take a break. Leave your usual environment for even a short time. Physically putting yourself in a different location helps your objectivity immensely.
* Take out a paper and pencil. Really. Paper and pencil. Try it!
* Make two short lists. The first, "Things I know I should be doing and am not." The second, "Things I know I should not be doing that I am." Brainstorm without editing.
* Narrow your lists down to a few key items each. Sort by things that can be done quickly, like apologizing to your spouse, and things that require more time, like finding a different job.
* Tick off the quick things today. No point waiting any longer.
* From the list of longer-term items, select the single most pressing (just one) and create a focused intention. Build your action plan and get started!

By following these simple steps, you will have changed your whole energy pattern and invoked another fundamental principle of natural healing: Take action when action is required!

Oh by the way. It's ok to go back home now. Just don't let yourself fall into a rut when you get there.