CHANGING HABITS

By Niki Billingslea

One of the “Eight Steps into the Master Mind Consciousness” states, “I decide to be changed.  I make a decision to surrender my will and my life to the Master Mind (God).  I ask to be changed at depth.”  Another one of the steps states, “I am ready to have my beliefs and attitudes changed so that my life can be transformed.”  Four years after taking my first Master Mind covenant, these words strike the very core of my being.

I think that four years ago I thought my life would change if I simply wished hard enough.  Ignorantly, I thought that my world would change and I would somehow be the same.  I was aware that I would have to do something differently, but I could not imagine that I would have to change.

Have you thought about what it means to change?  I used to think changing my life, my beliefs and my attitudes was merely doing things differently: exercise more, meditate regularly, eat healthy.  Sure, developing new habits help and facilitate a change, but those actions and habits alone do not create the deep change that is required to transform our lives.

Going back to my spiritual leaders, they say that all transformation begins with the thoughts we hold.  We have to root out the ideas that do not serve us and our feelings about the things we want to change but are unable to take action.  That is an overhaul that is no small undertaking. We have so many thoughts in the course of a day that to consciously deal with each seems daunting.

Meditation has become my salvation.  I sit and focus on the quality I am trying to create in my life.  The change that I think I want to make in order to allow for the condition I need to realize my purpose.  I meditate on it, I analyze it and I try to envision and feel it as much as possible.  Then, of course, I take steps to prepare myself for the situation.

An example, in my life, was the time I wanted a specific position at work.  The year before I was offered the position, I said YES to life.  I decided that any and every opportunity presented to me would be received with gratitude and taken advantage of.  All kinds of opportunities were presented to me--some which I had no idea how I could follow through with or fully take advantage of.

After saying yes for an entire year, with my last couple hundred dollars in the bank, and no idea of how I was going to get out of this situation without selling my soul back in a position I did not want, I received a phone call offering me the position I wanted.  Wow.  It was a wonderful moment, not because of the position but because my beliefs about what was possible were transformed.

In that year-long process, I had to push myself to do things I did not believe I could do--I was the technical and media director for a multi-disciplinary and inter-departmental project.  I was way in over my head, yet I honored my word and stuck with it.  Throughout the process, I had to keep telling myself “I am capable.  I can do it.”  I proved it to myself by preparing and learning the software I needed to execute the project.

Not all processes are so intense, but the best are.  A place to start is this web page dedicated to making change “Changing Your Habits.”