Diamonds are produced by time, heat, and pressure. The cut, clarity, and size of the diamond will determine its use. The use of the stone adds to its value, the first few cuts in a raw diamond will not be enough to bring out its beauty. You must continue shaping the stone, but with precision, to expose the beauty of the stone. Diamonds cut diamonds; your change begins through the facilitation of someone designed to shape a diamond. You need someone to help affect the change you need. They must have a foundation of truth guiding their process. Shaping the diamond requires an unfaltering hand to make the necessary cuts to shape a diamond. The emotions felt at each step are normal. There are degrees of emotion making each new facet of the diamond possible. Shaping a diamond carries much emotion, stemming from the past, hopes for the future, and uncertainty of the present, moving through feelings we must not "awfulize."
Awfulize - Definition: A negative perspective of the past. Thinking of the past in a way that categorizes it so horrible, so awful that we cannot look at it, handle it, examine it, or challenge it.
We must learn how to question the things that at one time were so difficult that we didn't want to experience again through that examination.
I learned how to go back and examine things in my life that was very difficult. I have had some devastatingly complicated issues and challenges in my life, a lot of loss. I lost a son at a very young age; within 90 days, I lost my great-grandmother, grandfather, aunt, son, marriage, and life as I knew it. I was independently living with my husband and son; just before losing my second son, I moved in with my mom due to the myriad of problems in the marriage. When I lost my son, I felt as if I had lost myself in many ways. I didn't have a recognizable and personally understandable foundation to stand on; there is nothing to carry you forward when you lack a solid spiritual foundation. Without a spiritual foundation to buoy yourself up at times of great difficulty, disappointment, or heartache.
I come from a small nuclear family. There were two siblings between my older brother and myself, who died in infancy. I learned fear from my mother, who taught me to be anxious and fearful, attempting to teach me to be careful of the way I lived my life because she didn't want to lose me as well. My mother lost two children consecutively (out of her four children.) My mother loved me from a distance because she was afraid that she could not survive the loss of another child. She remained guarded but loving until a year before her death when she opened up completely. When you grow up with a frightened parent, an overly cautious personality can take hold. When we look at the intensity of emotion, being afraid can run from being timid to being terrified and frozen with fear.
Our minds attempt to shield us from anything unpleasant.
When we look back over our lives, we often fail to appropriately examine those emotions challenge our beliefs, and move forward using those things as a strength rather than a weakness. Let's look at fear. An example of a weak experience of fear is timidity (being unsure or shy, nervous, tight, or tense.) When we move to a higher level of fear, the "moderate" range, we look at anxiety, apprehension, feeling threatened or insecure, or maybe worried. When we get to the area of "strong" fear responses, we will find feelings like terrified, panicked, afraid, thoroughly fearful, petrified, alarmed, paralyzed, and frozen. There are shades of difference in just the emotion or feelings of fear that we need to keep in mind.
Some of life's circumstances and situations appear too challenging to confront.
When in actuality, the emotions are not on the scale of petrified and terrified. Sometimes they're on the more "wait" side, which is just being a little tense and uneasy about speaking about it. We can readily challenge lesser emotions or feelings. When I experienced the Paradigm shift in my life, I was without spiritual resources. I didn't have the spiritual foundation that would have allowed me to stand in the losses, address my fears, evaluate them, put them into perspective, and move forward using them as a strength rather than a weakness. When we grow up, some will attribute their dislike for vegetables to just not liking them; frequently, they have never challenged or traced this response.
Many of our reactions to foods are formed when we are four (4) years old. If we look at a child's development, we realize that from ages 0-1, they are entirely dependent. Children at this age know little to nothing; by the time the child reaches two (the terrible twos) because the child is mobile, moving around trying out the world around them and sometimes getting in a lot of trouble. A two-year-old will hear no a lot, put that down, stop, and they at this point have determined that they will say no! I want to find out what this is! We move from the trouble of the "terrible twos" to a somewhat savvy three-year-old. They have gotten "a clue" regarding what will hurt and what won't. What they like and what they don't. By the time the child reaches four years old, they have enough experience to think they have things somewhat under control. "I don't like carrots. I don't like broccoli. I don't like... I will let you fill in the blank. I only want certain foods that may not be good for them. We take those same attitudes about food and never challenge them. We now grow into adulthood and allow the voice of a four-year-old to determine how they live their lives. The childhood experiences of our past are leading many. We have never taken the time to evaluate these experiences or challenge them. Due to a child finding something that they at that stage didn't like, the adult was still living in those limitations.
The portion of my history that made the most significant impact on me (once I got my foundation) was challenging my previous methods, challenging my previous thoughts, challenging fear. We are, as humans, creatures of habit. We do things the same way over and over and over. If we wake up, we have a routine; we do this the same way every day of our lives. When we get into our cars, we use the same path to reach a destination. When I became single, I was asked something as simple as my favorite color; I had to think about it. I had relinquished so much of myself in my marriage that I didn't know myself anymore. Like many others, sometimes our entire lives have been spent looking after someone else. I knew what my family liked. I knew everything about them, but in learning about them, I neglected myself. I had to look at how I was living my life. I found out that I needed to do things differently. As a result, I began to challenge why I did everything the way that had become a habit. I determined that I would have to do things differently to have a different life. I made a 180-degree change.
I consciously began to experiment; instead of going to the right, I would go to the left. I had a set route I used to go to the grocery store; this time, I decided that instead of turning right, I would turn left and go the opposite direction. When I began to venture out of my routine, I discovered a whole new world! New restaurants, new stores, new opportunities for growth and development. I incorporated this concept in other areas of my life. I began to do what I hadn't done before; as a result, I ended up with what I'd never had before-- a broader experience, new friends, a better way to live life, which was not limiting but expanding it. I've learned that changing one thing changes everything!
Ex: If you are baking a white cake and adding in chocolate, stir it slightly, you no longer have a white cake. You now have a marble cake.
As you continue incorporating the chocolate, the color of the entire cake changes so that the whole cake looks chocolate. Once you add the chocolate, you can no longer get it out. When we make a change in life, when we begin to look at things differently, when we take the time to examine what is taking place and make one small change (like the change I made in turning left instead of right), everything changes. Small changes allow growth in manageable ways. These changes become the difference in our new life from our old life. To do what you have never done, to have what you have never had, you must go about things in a new and different way.