Saleena: I was guided to find this message… I guess I needed it or someone out there needs it… Even if it half a year past the Gregorian calendar New Year, it seems we are constantly crossing into the oportunities to choose to have a new life experience, a new reality.

All the alignments and energies invite us, even demand that we make new choices now. This is a very nicely illustrated story reminding us of what we are being invited to do… CHANGE!

The Magic of Being Brave

By Susi White

"Your future is in your hands,

and when you’re brave,

you’ve a much greater chance

of making it a happy one!"

I once read that a definition of madness is ‘Repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results’. Whether you make resolutions or not, New Year is certainly a good time to start trying new ways of being, which are the key to making changes to our lives.

As a Life Coach, one of the first things I ask prospective clients is

‘are you ready to make changes in your life?’

Naturally, most people say yes, but often don’t realise the magnitude of what it can mean in the context of their life. It doesn’t just mean cycling to work instead of getting the bus, or giving up smoking –

the real power of ‘making changes’ is in living our lives differently from the inside out.

That means being prepared to look at things differently; to change our point of view or attitude;

to accept that we may have been wrong about something; to take a new perspective or

risk doing something that we’ve always thought of as ‘not how we do things’.

The older we get, the more ingrained our perception of ‘who we are’ can be, and that often includes the way we do things and how we think. “I’m not good at making new friends”, we think, or “I’m just not the sort of person who can deal with the unexpected, I like things nice and predictable.”

But if we want our lives to be different – to include more success, fulfilment or enjoyment – we have to do new things, and make fresh starts.

Of course,fresh starts are scary; that’s a given.

They involve

taking risks,

feeling fear,

feeling uncomfortable

and

out of our depth;

but they also give us a real gift.

They give us the opportunity to be brave.

Last week, I had an opportunity to be brave that came totally out of the blue. I was sitting in my study, writing an article, when the doorbell rang, and standing at the front door was a man I’d never met before, who introduced himself as the maintenance man for the village church, which is next door to our house. He said, “I’m doing some work on the bell tower – would you like to come up and have a look?”

I’ve only recently moved to the countryside, so of course, the London-bred, suspicious part of my mind ran riot, imagining him tying me up where no-one would ever find me, or murdering me gruesomely in the bell tower.

Clearly I watch too much TV, I thought, and I recognised that this was an opportunity to trust that most people are generally very nice and normal, and also to have a bit of an adventure,

so I consulted my gut instinct,

which was remarkably quiet

(and not screaming at me to

shut the door and run away).

I took the opportunity to

trust

both

my intuition

and this friendly gentleman,

and said ‘Give me two minutes, I’ll put my shoes on!’

Being brave, and taking a small risk,

gave me such a feeling of

excitement and adventure,

of venturing outside of my

usual perception of myself

as a bit of a scaredy cat.

Along with the very gentle, considerate, friendly man, I climbed up the pitch black, spiral staircase, up wooden ladders and through spidery, spooky passageways until I ended up underneath the church bells, as near to the top of the tower as it was possible to get (particularly as I’m scared of heights!)

The view was incredible,

the surge of adrenaline had me

laughing out loud,

and all in all it was the

most fantastic adventure

for a Tuesday afternoon!

It gave me a new perspective

on the opportunities that life holds,

not to mention my

assumptions about other people,

how dangerous the world is

(or in fact, probably isn’t),

and most of all about myself.

It reminded me that new, exciting opportunities

often involve fear, but that as long as we

listen to our instinct,

and as long as it says ‘go ahead’,

these opportunities are

well worth the courage needed to

push past our fears and into

new, exciting situations.

I recently coached a client who was unhappily single and had not been in a relationship – let alone a happy one – for years. Her mindset was fixated on ‘getting a man’, which she thought was what would ‘make her happy’.

In my opinion this was exactly what was holding her back from meeting someone with whom she could share her life; she was simply looking to ‘take’ rather than to ‘give’ in a relationship.

After some coaching she realised

that if things were going to

change in her ‘outside’ world,

she would have to start with

changing the ‘inside’ of her world

– learning to make herself happy,

and to look on others (men in particular)

as people to whom

she could give of herself,

rather than from whom she could

‘get’ the happiness she craved.

Realising this was shocking for her,

and she had to be very brave indeed

to start looking at her life,

and relationships,

in a totally new way.

She found it profoundly unsettling at first, but soon realised that unless she changed the way she was approaching relationships, she would continue having the same experience.

Without being brave,

and trying new ways of being,

we’re condemned to repeat our patterns.

Like the saying goes:

‘Do what you’ve always done

and

you’ll get what you’ve always got.’

If you want to experience something different this year – more love, more financial success, more fulfilment, more excitement, or even more peace, the only way to do that is to do something different, and that means being brave and stepping outside your comfort zone.

It may mean that you have to risk rejection, and meet new people.

It may mean that you try a new hobby or learn a new skill, and risk failure.

It may mean that you have to start trusting where before you held back from doing so.

It may mean that you have to accept that the way you’ve been doing things hasn’t been working for you, and recognising that you need help to do and see things differently.

Whatever it is that you have to do or see differently, it will by its very nature be uncomfortable for a small amount of time, but the discomfort won’t do you any harm, and it won’t last long.

Muster your courage,

focus on being brave,

take a deep breath,

and give it a go

– think of it as opening a door to a

whole new world of experience.

Being brave may not bring you exactly what you thought it would, but I guarantee it’ll bring you something exciting, interesting, inspiring and new, and more importantly you’ll know that if you’ve done it once, you can do it again.