Change your mind and your life will follow. . .

The title of this post is the title of one of my recent books.  (You can check it out if interested on amazon.) I mention it today because it’s great shorthand for how to live differently.  As a woman in recovery I talk to a lot of other women, and men too, in recovery who struggle, as I have struggled, with wanting a different life, a different set of experiences, different friends perhaps.

But if we keep doing the same old thing we will keep getting the same old results.  Wherever we go there we are, as author and speaker Earnie Larson was famous for saying.  If nothing changes, nothing changes.  And if we continue to believe the same old ideas, hang out in the same old places, tolerate the same old behaviors from ourselves and others, we will not be available for new experiences.  We will not even notice them trying to get our attention.

But change is possible.  A change in experiences.  A change in beliefs.  A change in friends.  I am living proof of that.  Perhaps the first way I changed was coming to believe that my journey was divine, that it was intentional and that every person I have ever met, was meeting now and would meet in the future were part of the drama that was destined to be mine.

That may sound too simplistic in this sophisticated, yet very chaotic world but it allows me to feel a sense of assurance and purpose.  It has made every step I take, every day, a bit more certain.  My part is to listen for God’s guidance.  It will come.  Not necessarily in the form of words but in feelings.  I have learned to trust my feelings.  I know that the hand of God was ever present in the many painful times I had.  I know that God was lovingly present in every experience,  every situation I have tolerated for the wisdom they have allowed me to garner and that I have passed on to others over the years.

There are no accidents.  Clearly.  I am convinced that who I meet today or tomorrow or next year has been already decided.  I love the power and the simplicity of this idea.  I don’t have to fret over any thing.  The future waits for me to get there.  It took a major change of mind for me to become willing to believe this idea, but since I have, I am able to bask in the peace of the moment.

Does the idea of changing your mind in order to have a more peaceful life appeal to you?  It’s not all that hard.  Start small.