Change Junkie

My birthday, according to the lunisolar kabbalistic calendar, is on the 23rd of Virgo which happens to be today. I have always believed that it is important to celebrate birthdays because they are the anniversary of the day your soul came into this world. For me, celebration signifies appreciation and gratitude for the opportunities that I have been given this past year and all of my years, in fact. That’s a pretty big deal and worthy of all kinds of celebration. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I especially love celebrating others’ birthdays as well.

Oddly as much as I love celebrating, I lost sight of it for a while. This was a lesson I learned last year. I have always been goal-oriented and especially in the last couple of years. After I would finish big projects, though, I would never pause to take it in. I would proudly check it off the list and set my sights on the next goal but I would never really celebrate it. And upon completing I would quickly get on to manifesting the next goal. Even after I would finish big projects, that were years in the making, I would never pause to take it in. I would proudly check it off the list and set my sights on the next goal but I would never really celebrate it. It dawned on me: where is the joy? Where is the gratitude?

Whenever we are naming a desire, making a plan, and achieving that desire we are bringing a thought of creation into the physical world. How is that any different than the thought of our own creation making our souls manifest in the world? Achieving a goal is a creative milestone – no matter how small – and it deserves its celebration!

Having had this realization, I now make a point to stop, push pause, and celebrate, to have an appreciation for myself, and give recognition to all of my efforts. Even to the “little things,” which get their own dance party.

Whether you celebrate by dancing or not, these moments in which we successfully finish something we set out to do, are an opportunity to observe our progress. They are chances to check yourself and make sure you’re living up to your potential. To me, living up to my potential means dedicating myself to my own spiritual growth, to always striving to be better than I was yesterday, to assess to make sure I’m not living a robotic existence, and to create positive change wherever I go. This is why I call myself a Change Junkie.

I’ve become addicted to creating positive change in my own life and, as a byproduct, the world around me. The kabbalists teach that our purpose for coming to this world is personal transformation. The more we are able to push against our nature the more we grow, the more we transform. Therefore, a successful life is actually a life of comfortable discomfort.

I liken it to a workout. My fitness routine is a vital part of my life and serves as a perfect metaphor for that sweet spot of growth. In order to build muscle, raise our heart rate, and get into “the zone,” we have to push ourselves to our limit of comfort… and then just a bit past it. Or for me, a lot past that. We know when we’re there, our thoughts crop up and say “I’m really tired, I want to quit” and instead we go one step further. My thought is “I can do anything for x amount of minutes.” Mind over matter.

This is why celebrating when we’ve stepped outside of our comfort zone and pushed against our nature is actually a very important part of the process. Growth isn’t easy and choosing change over comfort takes courage, resiliency, and self-love. When we are able to celebrate these qualities in ourselves, we help to inspire others to change for the better, as well.

Being a Change Junkie is infectious, your life stands as a testament to what positive changes can do. As others begin to take steps toward positive changes in their lives, a ripple effect occurs. Before we know it, the world is changing. And that level of big-picture change starts with you.

I read a quote recently from Howard Zinn, a playwright, historian, and social activist. It speaks so perfectly to what small acts of positive change can do and I’d like to share it here with you:

“I would encourage people to look around them in their community and find an organization that is doing something that they believe in, even if that organization has only five people, or ten people, or twenty people, or a hundred people. And to look at history and understand that when change takes place it takes place as a result of large, large numbers of people doing little things unbeknownst to one another. And that history is very important for people to not get discouraged. … History is instructive. And what it suggests to people is that even if they do little things, if they walk on the picket line, if they join a vigil, if they write a letter to their local newspaper. Anything they do, however small, becomes part of a much, much larger sort of flow of energy. And when enough people do enough things, however small they are, then change takes place.”

If you could change anything in your life today, what would it be?

If you could change something about the world today, what would it be?

My birthday wish is for everyone to know the joy and happiness that comes from getting addicted to change. The blessings are endless and the opportunities are without limit. We’re all personally just a few baby steps away from our most fulfilled selves and, collectively, from a whole new world. And every one of those steps deserves to be acknowledged, appreciated, and celebrated.


THOUGHT INTO ACTION

Make a list of little changes you can make toward the big change in your life that want to see. Dedicate each day this week to tackling one of them and make sure you stop to really celebrate your job well done.