#224 – If change is natural, why do we resist it?

Life is, by definition, ongoing change. Call it evolution, if you'd like.

Every day that passes, every minute, things are happening in our body and the world that make us and the world different from before. The light hitting my window changes, the temperature changes, my levels of hydration change, the signals in my brain change.

Quoting Heraclitus, you don't step "into the same river twice, for it's not the same river and it's not the same" you.

That's the reality, but our perception doesn't seem to catch up in real time. Why?

Because our internal self-protection devices (the Ego and the Ghosts) are running on "safe mode." And so any time they feel threatened by something they don't know, they sound the alarm.

They say to you things like, "you were safe that time when you had that job," so they have you looking for any job that reminds you of it.

Or "nothing bad happened to you when you wore that dress, but bad things happened when you wore that blazer," so you create a wear/don't wear list, attributing cosmic powers to pieces of clothing.

As biological entities, learning from the past is a critical skill. Failing to learn what's edible and what's not, or which animals would kill us and which wouldn't proved to be extremely useful to our survival.

But when it comes to our psychological life, clinging to the past is tantamount to imposing limits to our personal evolution.

As any investment professional will tell you, "past performance doesn't guarantee future results." Which means, using your past to assess whether your present choices will lead to a positive outcome in the future is vacuous.

Where are you allowing your past to impose limitations in your present?

Love,

Carolina