WELCOME to my  blog series on change; this post is the 3rd.  Each of these blogs stands alone and also builds on the previous content.  We are individually and collectively undergoing change at a rate, frequency and magnitude new to our life time.  The first in the series “Why Change?” and free podcast cast introduced the four powers to navigate change. The second in this series was the story of change which asked you to uncover your beliefs and habitual ways of thinking about change.  Find all blogs and free podcasts on each topic here on my blog.

The third in this series invites you to a “journey” of change.  Embracing change as constant, whether it is change we initiate or change that is external, is embracing a journey.  A journey perhaps with many beginnings and endings, sometimes happening simultaneously.  Since change has us dance with the parts of us that like predictability, control and the known, it helps to see change as a journey and utilize rituals, habits, practices and exercises to dance with change.  Your entire life is a journey of how you navigate change, how you manage your power or not and the changes that brings forth.  By practicing working with change you can go from where you are now to a more stable relationship with change – and look forward to change.

The remaining series engage a series of practices that help you become more aware of your sense of connection, understanding of truth, ability to be courageous and your power to envision the world.  If life is a process of change from beginning to end, then we must accept that any problem with change lies not in the world around us and changes we experience, but in ourselves and how we relate to those changes.  The goal is to thrive in change not survive change.

Ceremony and ritual help us identify beginning and endings, which signify change.  When we graduate from high school there is a lot of pomp and circumstance as we end our dependent childhood and begin independent adulthood.   Graduation ceremonies celebrate this change and initiation, it is a way to honor this change and allows us to better receive the gifts and wisdom the change offers, allowing us to move forward in freedom and empowerment.

Ceremonies do this, they heal and empower, allowing our mental minds to fall way for a moment and we can access great internal resources and support of the Universe.  As such, I provide an example of a two change ceremonies you can modify and employ.  Remember ceremonies are personal, there is no right or wrong way.  Change any part to match what feels right for you, personalize by adding or subtracting words or elements to fit your situation.

Despacho Ceremony comes from the Quechuans of South America and is a way to offer thanks and bring harmony or ayni to your life.  Despacho Ceremonies are used for many purposes, this one is basic.  You will need:

• A piece of paper
• Some thread, wool or ribbon
• Some offerings such as chocolate, sugar, seeds, raisins, oats, flower petals, a thimble of red and white wine and anything else that may symbolize what you are offering thanks for – these items hold your gratitude
• Three bay leaves or leaves from a plant that you feel connected to , picked with its permission –these hold your prayers.

Collect these things and find a quiet place you will not be disturbed.  You can play gentle music, light candles or meditate for a while before beginning, getting grounded.  Allow yourself to get centered and still.  Create a sacred space around you by calling out to the four directions, North, South, East and West and then the Earth and Sky, asking them to hold you as you make your offering.  Then, call to Spirit and ask for it to be with you and guide you.  Call on any helping guides, ancestors or teachers to be present.

Place the piece of paper in front of you and fold it into thirds both vertically and horizontally to create a container for your offerings.  When ready, pick one of the offerings you prepared and blow gratitude for one of the blessings in your life into it, filling it with your intent to give thanks.  Then put the offering into the center square of the paper, where ever you feel called to place it.  Continue to blow your gratitude for the blessings in your life into the offerings, placing them into the center of your bundle where it feels right.

When you are ready to complete the ceremony, take the three leaves and hold them whole you focus again on the gratitude you are feeling for this moment in your life. Into the first leaf, blow all your appreciation for the blessings and gifts that the past had given you. Then, place the leaf into the bundle, letting go of that old phase of your life as you do so. Into the second leaf, blow all of your dreams for the new phase that is coming into your life now.  Give gratitude for the opportunities and gifts this phase will bring you, and then release it to Spirit as you place the leaf into the bundle beside the first.  Into the last leaf, blow all of your gratitude for what never changes, the Sacred, and your connection to it, which is always there for you.  Place the final leaf into the bundle and take a moment to absorb the beauty of your offering.

Fold the rest of the paper over the bundle, being careful to keep all of the offerings inside.  Tie the bundle with some thread, read and white is good as it represents the sacred masculine and feminine combined.  Wrap your bundle in a piece of cloth, being careful to keep it upright at all times, and then place it somewhere safe and quiet until you are ready to complete the ceremony out in nature.

Finally, close the sacred space by thanking each direction for holding your ceremony, and by thanking your ancestors, guides, teachers and Spirit for witnessing your offering of gratitude.  To complete a Dispacho, you will release the bundle to Spirit, either by placing it in a fire, giving it to running water or the sea, or by burying it in the earth.  Create a sacred space, just like when you made your bundle and let go of your gratitude and prayers as you give the Despacho to the elements and to Spirit for them to transform.  Close the sacred space life before and know that your prayers have been received.

For a ceremony that plants a seed of change, see the free recording with this blog this month at www.allembracingchange.com.  Join us next month as we being to explore connection and its power to help evolve your relationship with change.  You can have an ageless body, a timeless mind, a resilient energy, a creative life where you look forward to the next change, the unfolding of life into more and more joy, beauty and brilliance.  Next in this series is the Journey of Change.

WELCOME to my new blog series on change.  Each of these blogs stands alone and also builds on the previous content.  We are individually and collectively undergoing change at a rate, frequency and magnitude new to our life time.  The first in the series “Why Change?” and free podcast cast introduced the four powers to navigate change, find both at www.allembracingchange.com.

The second in this series unveils your story of change by exploring beliefs and habitual ways of thinking about change- today.  Controlling my environment, my space, my calendar and the people around me has been a lifelong strategy to protect myself from the unknown, or change I didn’t ask for.  We are not really afraid of change but afraid of the rate of change. How many times have you said, “I wish I didn’t work there, or know her, or _____”? What do you wish with strong emotion was different right now – and if that wish came true the second after you spoke or thought it, your world would be upside down instantaneously?  We want change, most often we are afraid of the rate at which it might happen.   We don’t like others to change – if it means we will have to do something different, so we help keep others small to protect ourselves.  Even after I understood that my “control” was an illusion, I still navigate to control, it is part of our human condition.

We all have a story about change, change we want and change that is forced upon us.  And that story may not be ours, handed down or given to us by others.  That story may evolve and shift.  The goal is to have an intentional story that empowers you through change that provide a door through, not a wall, ceiling and locked windows.  Our beliefs and perceptions about change serve as walls, known or unknown to us.  Beliefs and perceptions contain what is possible, what is real and what is true within a set of boundaries. Anything outside those walls we discount or ignore.

Boundaries help us frame our lives – and you know they serve you when you move toward joy, lightness and your dreams.  They do not serve us when they create pain, suffering, fear, anxiety or any other lack of well-being.  Our beliefs create patterns of thinking about change that result in behaviors and habits that fuel one of two paths, either hold us back, in or holding on so we avoid or react and stay in victim, blame, shame, anger, bitterness, resentment, fear or a similar vibration. The result is more of the same. Or our beliefs create patterns about change result in behaviors and habits that empower, move us forward into more ease, flow, harmony, resilience, creativity, love, fulfillment, satisfaction, ambition, lightness, joy.  The result is movement forward.  Both journeys likely involve hard work, courage, patience, perseverance, discipline, focus and a struggle or challenge. One honors the human condition and reality that we will encounter struggle and one resists that reality.

For example if we believe change is unpredictable and will throw us off our game and we may lose something, that would foster and fuel a sense of tension, fear or anxiety.   Those lower vibrating feelings cut us off from our intuition, confidence, and connection to our purpose, values and dreams, creativity and problem solving skills. As such, we react versus respond.  We miss opportunities and what the Universe is providing us right now in the moment.  We miss the enjoyment and journey of transitions, cycles, death and rebirths that are a natural part of every human life.  We miss our Destiny.  Maybe this is exactly the break through you are looking for.

Before we being to work and shift our relationship with change we need to know our starting point.  How do we currently feel about and perceive change in our life?  When we know what the key issues in this relationship are we can hold those issues in mind and work with them as we move forward.

A great way to uncover our fundamental way of seeing something is to tell a story about it.  Stories are multi- level complex maps that operate in all the areas of our lives.  A story can be taken literally, metaphorically or can speak to us on a spiritual level that goes beyond words.  Telling our story gives us a wealth of understanding about our relationship to it.  No skill needed to tell your story. No right or wrong story, no good or bad story.  Just your story.  A mythical story that will unveil the wisdom you are looking for, using symbols as well as words allowing us to use our subconscious mind as well as our conscious mind.

Three symbol stories is one way to tell the mythical story we are currently living.  To create a three symbol story use a pack of cards, such as your SoulCollage^© deck, wisdom, oracle or contemplation card deck (angel, animal, goddess, grace, tarot, etc.), any cards with images.

Find a quiet place to sit for a while with your cards and your journal.  Give yourself permission to take this time out for yourself and remove distractions (pets, phones, devices, etc.).  Create a sacred space, light a candle, and bring in some herbs, flowers, essential oils or part of mother earth.  Close your eyes, focus on your breath and release, release, release whatever is on your mind, except what you are doing.  Ask in your own way for Source, Spirit, Universe, God (your word) or the Sacred to be with you now.

When you are ready, hold the pack of cards in front of you.  Tell the cards what you are doing and blow over them (writing a story about your relationship to change), holding in your mind as you do is an image of what you are about to do.  Then shuffle the deck and draw three cards, placing them face down in front of you.  Set the rest of the deck aside.

Turn over the cards one at time, taking time to really see their images. Pay no attention to any words on the cards and instead let the images speak to you?  What details jump out to you?  How do they make you feel?  What do you smell, hear, sense and can feel tactile? Once you have looked at each card intently pick up your journal and write a free flow story. The first words of the story are, “In a changing world…”

Write the rest of the story using the cards you picked up as the scenes for the beginning, middle and end. Let the images tell you, I am one who tells you, reminds you, let’s you, informs you, as examples, letting each image on the card speak.  Take only five minutes to write and let go whether it is good or bad, grammatically correct, etc.  Just write what comes to you.

When you are finished.  Thank Spirit for being with you and put away your cards and journal.  Return in a day or two and sit with your story. Read it a few times, at least once out loud. Notice how it feels in your body, where you feel what in your body, tight, achy, or light and free? Do you recognize this story in your life?  Who are you in the story?  And is this the story you want to live? How do would you like it to end? Are there parts which make you feel uncomfortable or which you hesitate to read?

The answers to these questions will tell you more about how you personally relate to change at the moment, and whether that relationship is working for you or not.  Clues will arise on you’d like to relate to change and how you might make those shifts.   Remember the story is symbolic, the elements and situations in it represent elements and situations in your life, from the perspective of your soul rather than your mind.  Allow these symbols to speak to you, what do they mean personally?

For example you may tell a story of a person who crosses a river to help someone.  The river may represent many things, the flow of time, emotions, challenges, lives of ancestors, etc.  The interpretation will be based on your own personal experiences and associations, so only you can know what they are.  And as you grow and shift in your relationship with change, these associations and meanings will shift as well as you begin to see the deeper layers of your truth.  There are only two places change comes from, the external world or your internal shifts.  The only control you have is over yourself.

Each blog is accompanied by a free complementary pod cast, found at www.allembracingchange.com.  Join us each month and dance, inquiry and evolve your relationship with change.  You can have an ageless body, a timeless mind, a resilient energy, a creative life where you look forward to the next change, the unfolding of life into more and more joy, beauty and brilliance.  Next month and third in this series we will explore the Journey of Change.