Chronicle of Change
How does a real change happen? A change that you can actually feel in your daily life; a change that stays and does not disappear after a week or two. My experience teaches me that a real change happens in 3 phases:
In order to experience a real change in life, one must pass through these 3 phases. There are no shortcuts.
In the first phase, you are encouraged to look at yourself and see how you appear. Look closely in the mirror and see the real picture reflected there. How are you coping today? What is your set of beliefs? What is your set of conditions, fears? What are the driving forces in your life and the forces holding you back? What is your motivation to act? Once and for all, look beyond the mask, beyond the image, beyond the role you are trying to play, and see yourself as you are today. The picture reflected in the mirror might be unpleasant. Sometimes it might be horrific. But without a genuine, honest observation of yourself, there is no point in moving to the second phase. Without genuine observation on that reflection, real change cannot happen. My personal experience proved to me, time and again, that in the long run there is no way to avoid this first phase, unpleasant as it may be. So this will be the first invitation this book will offer: take a good look at yourself.
In the second phase, you are invited to ask yourself: do you really want to change? After seeing yourself in a true and honest fashion, do you still have a true longing to change, to undergo transformation? That is a tricky question. The obvious answer might be: "But of course! Otherwise I would not have bothered to be here, to read this book, would I?" All that is fine, but, as I mentioned before, it is not so simple. We all want to change, until Judgment Day comes, and we realize what this change we are longing for really means; what it requires; what we are supposed to let go of; what set of beliefs and conditionings we are invited to shed off; how far from the well-built comfort zone we are required to move away from, a zone so well established over years of avoidance.
Suddenly doubts come. "I didn’t know this would be the price. That’s not for me. I find myself in a ‘puddle’, but I'm used to this puddle. I know the temperature of the mud. Do not tell me that I have wings, and can fly. It is too threatening".
Only those who say: "Yes, I want to change, no matter what the price might be", and truly mean it, only they can be invited to continue forward to the third phase.
In the third phase, you can learn HOW to change. You will be taught deferent techniques, useful tools; you will practice, and gradually you will change. But only those who went through the first two stations, will go through a real life transforming process. Those who try to find a shortcut, to jump forward to the ‘bottom line’, will soon discover that the desired change is not happening. The techniques they learned in the third phase are not effective. They just join many other techniques collecting dust on some forgotten shelf, patiently waiting for the day you become available to use them properly.