Tuesday, October 09, 2007

renewal


"Be transformed by the renewal of your mind."





Change is inevitable, though as human beings, we try to buck it with all our might. Like putting on a stiff pair of new shoes, change binds uncomfortably causing blisters and sore spots. It's very rare that you find a pair of shoes that have a cozy fit right away. Normally, you try on many different pairs, test out a dozen styles before you find the ones which call out to you. Then, you have to get used to them....walk around in them for a bit. Change is the same way. We need to wear it for a while......test it out while walking up and down the aisles in our mind before we decide to come to terms with it.


Isn't it funny how often you find yourself looking at your new pair of shoes when you first wear them out of the house? Perhaps they are TOO white..........TOO new looking and you feel like everyone is starring at the glow. Perhaps they are TOO shiny.......TOO sparkly and need a bit of a scuff just to wear them in. Or maybe they are just perfect and you can't seem to look at them enough. I think we all have a bit of a toddler in us when it comes to new shoes.


What happens when the shoes you purchased are very different than the type of shoes you have worn in the past........the heel is higher, the colour is bolder.......you've gone from wearing loafers all the time to a more formal dress shoe? It takes an adjustment in thinking and doing to make the shift to wearing different shoes. If you've defined yourself as a sandals person, it's going to take a while to transform your thinking if all of a sudden you're sporting a pair of steel toed work boots.


No matter what the shift is, it begins with feeling uncomfortable during the transition. So what happens when the change is much bigger than a new pair of shoes?



What if we are in market for a personal internal transformation.......... a REALLY big shift in our way of thinking and doing and believing? Do these things happen overnight? Not normally. I don't think one can go to sleep one night believing life spins one way and wake up the next seeing it on a completely different axis. A renewal of the mind is a gradual growth usually. That's how we best handle change.


Wouldn't it be nice if our lives and our world worked that way? LOTS of time to make a gradual change..............uhuh...............


Unfortunately, events beyond our control and even some within our control can trigger a huge shift in a split second. We have seen this whenever a natural disaster hits one part of our global community. We have seen how one photo of a naked child running down the road in pain away from the firey violence in VietNam altered the thinking of a whole nation with respect to a war being fought halfway around the world. We have witnessed a sea of peace loving monks dressed in their traditional garb march in protest down the streets in Burma .......


The twin towers


The tsunami


Katrina


Hiroshima


One small step for man........


the discovery of penicillin.


the birth of a baby


marriage


divorce


personal health news


Change alters the light.........and increases the heat of anxiety because change shakes our foundation of faith. What do I believe? What kind of life shoes do I want to fit me? How am I going to transform my thinking to accept new? How am I going to get through this? Do you wish you could bottle up a magic potion that would take some of the pain and anxiety away from our inevitable transformative changes? Unfortunately, we must do our best to align our hearts and minds to renewal with the faith and understanding that it is all a part of our own journey.

It's all about reaching a point where we don't cry because it's over. Rather we smile because it happened.



written by this week's writers island prompt, renewal.................check out the others..........

15 comments:

Marja said...

Great paralel with shoes. Great writing Thanks

Karen said...

Wow Dana, how poetically you manage to describe the terror of change and the fear it inevitably instils in all of us. Often when we have worn in those shoes, we discover that they are much more comfortable than the ones we wore before but it can be a bitch wearing them in.

Rainbow dreams said...

loved so much of this Dana... more so because of a conversation about shoes last night that seems to fit so well with this...

even well thought out, and planned change takes time to settle into - and we always need psople to be there with the plasters and the foot rub until we've settled in.

Shaz said...

Are you writing just for me at the moment, this is just so amazing. I know I say this every time but do soak everything up and love how you word things.
Im looking for the right fitting shoes xxx

awareness said...

marja...welcome and thank you.

gypsy....sometimes those shoes we have to exchange are our favourites too....even though they have no soles left and a big hole in the end, but we still love them. We have walked many miles and experience many things in those shoes......it's a very difficult process of letting go isn't it?

katie...we do need people around us....and not the ones who are getting commission to help us either...the genuine ones to reassure and to help us find balance. I read this to martha this morning before she headed off to school.....she's a shoe fiend, so I knew she'd be interested. Food for thought for her this morning, as she continues making the transition into life at high school :)

shaz......am pleased i'm hitting the place where you are. I guess we are all on some part of the transformation continuum arent we?

I actually wrote this in one sitting in the middle of the night.....posted it and promptly returned to bed. I was such a thrill to wake up to see 4 comments and feedback on this piece. Thank you. The quote from the Bible is where I began......don't have a clue where the shoes analogy came from.... :)

paisley said...

so often we have heard it said walk a mile in my shoes... and here your bring it full circle.. to introduce the shoes we as humans share... like it or not.. we are in this together... i loved this....

gautami tripathy said...

I like the shoe analogy. It fits. Thanks for this thoughtful post!

Lucy said...

great comparrison with shoes! And....
" A renewal of the mind is a gradual growth usually. " great post

Kamsin said...

I've always been a sneakers kind of girl, it's a real struggle for me to wear smart shoes or heals, but a professional "grown up" working life demands it. Anyway, the last two lines are awesome, so important to be thankful for what was rather than trying to hold onto the past.

Tumblewords: said...

Beautifully written, truthful and lovely. Revealing. I'm returning to read.

Jenny said...

Just perfect.

awareness said...

Thank you for all the kind words. Writing is like trying on a new pair of shoes too....anything creative is really isn't it? You have to stretch beyond what is comfortable, cast a line out...wear a new pair of shoes to be able to see things in a different light. I'm happy the analogy worked. Middle of the night writing seems to fit my left handed thinking/writing I guess.

cheers.

Mary Timme said...

From shoes to life changes to earth changes with political stuff thrown in. Man, you covered all and I do mean all the bases! Nice!

An instructor once said: Change is not difficult at all. . .it is our resistance to change that makes it difficult.

Gilson said...

Great post! Changing can bring out parts of us we didn't know before.

Matthew said...

Wow! Beautifully written and communicated, your analogy brings to life a concept so simple that it can often be overlooked. Change is really all there is. And yet there is a certain quality of stillness that suspends that nonstop movement of thought, action, etc.

Only when huge life events happen do we take notice and self-evaluate. Thank you for prompting me to take the time and look within.