Does it feel good? Or does it feel familiar?
It’s like that impossible question at the end of your Philosophy midterm. You think what’s the difference. Aren’t they the same thing?
And then…
You pause just long enough to realize that good and familiar are often on opposing teams.
I can give you the War & Peace version of why I prefer familiarity, but the bottom line is that shifting from familiar to good requires change. And change and I have a complicated relationship. She pushes. I dig my heels in.
What I’ve realized is that my resistance to change chases away…
➡️ Magic
➡️ Joy
➡️ Happiness
➡️ Pixie dust
AND most importantly….my intuition.
This past June, I had the opportunity to go on a Quest during my training to become a Soul Coaching® practitioner. For those unfamiliar, Quests are time spent alone in nature to connect more deeply with yourself and your Spirit guides.
The fun part is that you can dedicate your Quest to anything you’d like.
I dedicated mine to gratitude.
I had recently noticed my upside-down relationship with giving and receiving. When it comes to giving, I’m like the overachieving teacher’s pet. When it comes to receiving, I’m more like the annoying kid in the back of class shooting spitballs.
On the evening of my Quest, I set up my Adirondack chair among the high grasses as the sun began its slow descent.
For the next hour, I would journey through each phase of my life showering all the memories that popped up with love and gratitude, even (and especially) the ones that I wanted to put in the recycle bin.
I also embraced the messages from the animals…
➡️ The bats who showed up as I was journeying through my childhood.
➡️ The butterflies and dragonflies who showed up as I was journeying through my teens and 20’s.
And then….
➡️ The deer who fled as I journeyed through my adulthood.
This was the moment when I thought what the heck!
I was seeing my life played out in the field before me. And I had just chased the deer away.
They had been peacefully grazing one minute and the next were chased away by the relentless sounds of train whistles and barking dogs.
In that instant, I realized it’s the noisy trains and barking dogs in my life that chase away the gentleness and innocence symbolic of the deer. It’s the noise that makes experiencing joy and happiness harder than it needs to be. And make hearing my intuition sound like I’m underwater.
BUT HERE’S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING…
I didn’t consider my life noisy, because the noise was familiar.
And when something is familiar, we don’t realize there’s something better on the other side of change. We allow status quo to edge out feelings of joy and happiness.
I’m ready to let go of the familiar noise in my life.
What are you ready to let go of?
What change can you make to shift from familiar to good, so you can experience the magic of fairies showering you with pixie dust?
HERE’S A PRO TIP FOR MAKING THAT SHIFT…
Start with your home.
Our homes are filled with things that are familiar placed in ways that are familiar.
We don’t stop long enough to remember that we don’t actually like Aunt Mary’s cross stitch that’s been hanging in the hallway forever. Or that we don’t like the perpetual pile of mail on the kitchen counter.
The magic is that when we shift the energy in our homes, we shift the energy in our lives.
Is there one change you can make in your home today that will interrupt the status quo and shift you from familiar to good?
HERE ARE SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED…
- Rearrange the furniture in a new way. Even if it’s shifting one thing!
- Update the photographs in your frames.
- Put a pretty tablecloth on your table that’s normally bare. Or vica versa. Remove the tablecloth that’s always been there.
- Splurge on some new towels for your bathroom. Maybe your favorite color. Or go for the crispness of white.
- Make space in your kitchen cabinets or pantry for your small appliances, so you can clear off your kitchen counters.
Here’s to feeling good,
xoxo
Dorena
