How to Make Real, Lasting Changes in Your Life — A Practical Approach

Photo: Our grateful thanks to Johnny Cohen on Unsplash!

by Marcel Hernandez, N.D.

I have a bowl of about a hundred cards with uplifting words on them like passion, harmony, friendship, joy. Many mornings, I’ll take a moment to focus my attention on one of these concepts and resolve to make it a focus for the day.

When I drew a card recently, a second card came out of the bowl along with it.

The two cards said “stability” and “change.” I pondered how they relate to our health. And I reflected on the seemingly opposite words on and off during the day.

We tend to have trouble with change – less so with stability. Change is happening in every moment – you’d think we’d have adapted to it by now! Yet we have a seemingly instinctive resistance to change, all the more so as we age.

Marcel Hernandez, ND

We yearn for stability – to go to an imaginary place where we can be calm and take a break from the swirling events in our minds, our hearts, and our environment.

Here’s the bad news: Stability doesn’t exist in the way we usually imagine it.

The only actual, lasting stability we can experience lies in learning to adapt gracefully to the ebb and flow of our surroundings while remaining inwardly centered, focused, calm, accepting, and compassionate.

The cards in the bowl serve a secondary purpose for me. When I start my morning with positive thoughts, my brain is pre-programmed to meet the day with a healthy attitude.

There’s a saying about New Year’s resolutions. “They go in one year and out the other.”

It’s fairly easy to imagine being a better version of our self. But real, lasting change only happens by making a personally meaningful, realistic, step-by-step, do-able volition, at a deep level of conscious understanding and practical application.

Real changes only happen at the atomic level of our being – we can only make changes that draw our whole being into a flow of energy and consciousness.

Want to quit smoking? Change your consciousness first. Study the effects of smoking until they move your heart and mind. (Change begins in the heart.) Then make a realistic plan. Sure, you probably won’t be able to quite in a day. But how about a year, or five years? “I can’t imagine changing today, but there is no way I’ll still be smoking after five years.” Then, every day without fail, start feeding your mind and heart with positive thoughts of how you’ll feel when you’re smoke-free – and just watch how spectacularly successful you’ll be. Why? Because you’ve changed your consciousness and everything else has followed naturally.

The day will come when you’ll put down your last cigarette with an absolute conviction and a sure inner knowing: “That was the last one. I am free!”

Here are some suggestions to help you change your consciousness and change your life.

  • Embrace Change. Feed your consciousness daily with thoughts, feelings, and understandings that will make change seem possible. Positive thoughts will overcome any negative resistance, especially when you keep the positive thoughts alive and renew and add to them daily, over time.
  • To resist change is a sure path to a slow death, not only emotionally but physically and spiritually. When we learn to welcome change, we begin to harmonize ourselves with the dynamic flow of energy that is nourishing and sustaining all creation – including us – and we feel far more vital and alive.
  • Learn to Adapt.  Humans know a trick that the animals can’t do. We can adapt quickly to external circumstances and mold our environment accordingly. No other species can survive in polar and tropical conditions by designing appropriate clothing and life-support systems that allow us to integrate with the vastly disparate surroundings.
  • “Brainwash yourself before someone nasty beats you to it.” (Thanks to Rob Brezsny.) We form healthy patterns by repetition. Start the morning with a positive affirmation, prayer, Angel Card, or inspirational reading – anything to focus your thoughts and actions in an upbeat direction. Try to stay in this uplifted state throughout the day.
  • Be grateful. No matter what’s happening in your life, focus on the blessings. Let others know how thankful you are for the part they play in your life. Do this every day. It will help you expand your consciousness beyond the dimensions of the issues that are affecting you personally – and you’ll be amazed by the solutions that will come when you open yourself to the power of love and compassion.
  • Keep an open mind. Release the idea that you know it all and that your reality is all there is. Learn the value of opening your eyes to see the world as others see it.

We wish you an uplifting, expansive New Year! May the blessings of inner Self-realization, peace, and joy flow through you and bless the Earth in 2023.

For information about the services we offer at Pacific Naturopathic, please give us a call at 650-961-1660, use the convenient Contact Form to get in touch, or follow the link to: Consultations – Pacific Naturopathic. Thank you!