"I'm not one for Change"

Our new neighbours popped round for a play

Journaling is a great way to try and make sense of cloggy-thoughts that aren't going anywhere - like the dull, un-attractive Kenyan skies right now, that just hang from the heavens, not knowing why they are there.

Journalling can take us into some of our leadened-thoughts and offers us the opportunity to have a good look around at what's going on up top. This kind of writing might be likened to hopping on an exercise bike, where you're forced to place your feet on the pedals and just get going... and trusting the body to do its thing.

Making a sack garden with Daniel and James

Diving into your thought-life, as I have discovered, can be both un-nerving but also very liberating.

Reflective writing takes you to the mush of your unfocused thinking and gives the opportunity to ask, "OK, so what's going on here then?"...and can provide you with some surprising discoveries

Purity inspecting our first crop of coriander 

I read the other day that over 90% of what occupies our front cortical, thinking brain every day is repetitive, boring and quite frankly un-challenging.... I'm sure our poor grey-matter was designed for so much more. But it turns out that we love to stay un-challenged, because it's comforting that way and we somehow feel safer in our fixed and often lazy thinking. It's a predictable place, snug and cozy. I have to add that the article said that the older you get, the more risk adverse you become and fearful of change, new thoughts or challenging ideas. "HELP", I thought ..."save me from a fixed way of thinking, that only takes me round and round the same neural circuitry "

Extract from my journal -  29th July 2014:  Thoughts on 'Change' and why is it so hard?
Why is change so damm difficult? Why do I resist change with all my might?  - I live as if I know I'm so right.
I have fixed views on almost everything and cling to personal views with dogged determination, as if my life depended on it. Yet Jung said we should allow life to open us to change and that when we do, a new level of consciousness will birth within us. Sounds fascinating and scary.

Stephen Grosz wowed me with these words, "At one time or another, most of us have felt trapped by things we find ourselves thinking or doing, caught by our own impulses or foolish choices; ensnared in some unhappiness or fear; imprisoned by our own history. We feel unable to go forward and yet we believe that there must be a way. Many of us want to change, but not if it means changing"

These words rumble into my mind like a thunderstorm of epic proportions. I think about the harboured hurts I nurse, the wounded pride and arrogant attitudes I carry...oh yes, and the ever demanding tender-ego that is ready to defend itself to the death.

Rohr said, "The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling or changing or dying. The ego is that part that loves the status quo, even when it is not working. It attaches to the past and present and fears the future".

I read these words and know that some of my thinking is certainly not working for me, but CHANGE will always be hard and unattractive...and yet something tells me that it will be utterly liberating too.
So, why not try??

Roadside children - if you look closely some are wearing TOMS shoes

Without changed thinking unhappy family conflicts remain un-resolved and tragically stuck, without the willingness to change, anger reigns and Gaza and Israel continue to blow each other apart. Without the willingness to part with the status quo in our heads we continue to hold to our entrenched prejudices, our feelings of offence, our niggles and angers and pet fears.

"CHANGE YOUR THINKING, CHANGE YOUR LIFE"

                                                                                                                                                    - JB

Trevor relaxing at 'home' with his journal