Who Are You? : Part 3

Welcome to Your Crisis: How to Use the Power of Crisis to Create the Life You Want
by Laura Day

(Page 3 of 3)

One of the joys of raising children is experiencing how their intellects grow not in small steps but in large leaps. At four, my son believed that his mother had all the answers. Mommy was truth. Then one day - truly one particular day; I remember it vividly - he realized that Mommy didn't have all of the answers. On this day his wisdom began. Now, as a teenager, he thinks he has all the answers. But as he grows into an adult, this phase of unshakable certitude will change, too. ("No it won't," he says. "Yes it will," I reply, patiently yet firmly. "You don't know anything," he counters. I bide my time.)

You are who you believe you are. You live in the world you believe you live in. Your beliefs frame and support everything you see in the world as well as your impulses and motivations. When you can no longer verify that reality, when your beliefs or your conditions no longer allow you to function effectively - you experience crisis.

I was thirty-five years old when my husband and I began our divorce. My son was two. Although my husband and I had been separated since my pregnancy, divorce litigation was a frightening new world.

When I was going through my divorce, I met a group of women in the courtroom halls where we spent our days in the costly and barbaric process of a divorce trial. To ensure that we retained custody of our children, we had to prove to a stranger - the judge - that we were viable human beings without our husbands, even if we personally had our doubts. We had to appear self-sufficient, remaining solid and unshaken in the face of accusations that even tabloids would be reluctant to print.

In reality we were all so beaten down by the demands of being single parents, of enduring the soul-crushing court processes, of paying our lawyers, and of being on the short end of the paycheck that we did not believe we amounted to much at all. Our formerly secure, sometimes even affluent, lives had been ruptured beyond repair. We were living in the garbage dump of our former lives.

At some point in the interminable divorce process, however, something "clicked" in all of us - a palpable, visceral change. Ironically, we had become so used to faking courage and self-sufficiency that we began to believe in and embody those traits! As our beliefs changed, we had the courage to call employers for jobs, to manage our lawyers differently, and to try to use our talents to succeed. As our beliefs about ourselves changed, we were able to capitalize on the opportunities around us.

I am still amazed that our personal transformations happened to us as a group, almost simultaneously. Nobody could look at any of us today and imagine us as the fragile, frightened, dependent women we had been not so long ago, waiting for our cases to be heard.

In moments when we are required to adapt to change, our treasured internal responses and patterns - which supported us to this point - can become the barrier between us and success. New Year's resolutions fail because we make a list of changes we require of ourselves without addressing the many interconnected parts of the ecosystem in which they exist. People who need to lose weight or find better jobs or improve their relationships need to change something in their ecosystem - their patterns, surroundings, perceptions, or relationships - from which the goal is a natural and sustainable result.

When your beliefs change but your life does not change with them, you end up living a shadow life, striving to maintain your beliefs in a life and world you no longer inhabit. Consider Karen's story.

Karen was an advertising genius. She could find a way to package dirt and make you want to buy it. People around her always complimented her work, but she was clear she cared nothing about her work or her considerable talent. All she wanted to do was to marry, raise a family, and have someone take care of her. These needs meant everything to her.

Unfortunately, her relationships were a disaster. She always picked inappropriate or unavailable men. From month to month she was either euphoric about falling in love or devastated about having lost it. Many less-talented people received the promotions and the projects that would have displayed her gifts. Many less-lovely women married and had families. A single, anxious, thirty-nine-year-old, Karen was not fulfilling her potential either in work or in love. By putting her gifts at the "nothing end" of the spectrum and her domestic fantasy at the "everything end," she had disempowered herself to realize either potential.

Everything in your life should have importance; nothing should be worthless.

To Change Your World, Change Yourself

Einstein's principle of relativity revolutionized how scientists view the universe and ultimately led to the discovery of atomic power. But the principle of relativity is more than a tool for scientists: it is a powerful thinking tool we can all use. This perspective will revolutionize how you view yourself and will give you untold power to shape your universe.

You are not a single, unrelated speck of energy. You create a field of energy, relationships, and outcomes. If your world changes, you change. The relativity principle tells us that this dynamic works the other way, too: if you change yourself, your world changes - the universe changes.

If you want to change your world, then, start by changing yourself. When you change, you transmit the changes to your world and shift the dynamic of everything in the universe. You and your circumstances are changing right now, as you read the words on this page.

In taking these steps, we change the universe of which we are part. To change your world - change yourself. The reverse is also true: when you master yourself, you master your environment.

Copyright © 2006 by Laura Day

About the Author

Laura Day has been teaching her private seminar, "Practical Intuition," all over the world for the past ten years. Her students include doctors, journalists, CEO's, financial analysts, and celebrities. She lives in New York City with her son, Samson.