Have you ever felt frustrated about making a permanent change in your life? Say, after a failed attempt at losing some weight and keeping it off? Or finding that every dream job turns out to be the same old thing? While reading a self-help book or perhaps listening to a self-help talk did you have a moment when you felt like ‘I KNOW all these things, but how do I incorporate them into my life? How do I make a change once and for all?’
If so, what you are thirsty for is INTEGRATION (No, not calculus. I am sure you aren’t thirsty for that). Integration to me is when something becomes a part of you. When you effortlessly wake up an hour or two earlier than usual and find that you have ‘become’ an early-riser, when you find you are naturally in a peaceful state and cannot remember the last time you lost that temper that you were once famous for. The awareness and ability needed to ride a bicycle or to swim are integrated within you, aren’t they?
Integration is what results in permanent change. In my experience, it takes knowledge (understanding) AND ‘energy work’ to make a permanent change. I see most people focused on only one of the two. Some read a lot, listen a lot but find application very tough. Others do regular asanas, or Reiki, or breath-work and achieve higher energy, but often find it hard to make an important change they need to make.
For integration of new, better understanding to happen, you must be ready for it. I.e. your energy must be ready for it. The higher the understanding, the higher your energy needs to be to integrate it. When would you try to talk to an alcoholic about getting help? When he is drinking? When he is drunk out of his mind? Or when he is sober, feeling ‘normal’, and receptive? Obviously, when his energy is relatively good.
If you add a large, hard lump of sugar into a pot of water, some of the sugar will dissolve in the water and you will be unable to remove it from the water. A big part of the lump will remain undissolved and you will be able to remove it from the water if you wanted to. If you wish to dissolve the entire lump what would you need to do? Increase the energy of the water, of course! So if you light a flame under the pot and start stirring the water you will notice that the entire lump of sugar becomes a part of the water very quickly. The pot of water, the appropriate flame, and the sugar are all needed to turn the water into a sweet solution.
At the risk of stating the obvious, some of us are busy adding more sugar to the water (by reading this article you are certainly doing that), some of us light a candle under the water once in a while, others have a steady flame under the water but no sugar in sight. Few of us strike and sustain the optimum balance between the water, sugar and the flame.
There are many practices, tools and schools of thought that can help you strike a balance that creates permanent and effortless shifts in your life – without failed new year resolutions and diets, and the associated feelings of failure and low self-worth. In my experience self-help introspective books or talks, along with introspective exercises, EFT, and a regular energy practice make an unbeatable formula for making permanent changes.
EFT’s power is transformative. It even improves the effects of energy practices like Reiki by clearing disruptions in our energy circuits. Tapping is the stirring of the sugar and water to make them inseparable.
The next time you feel like making a permanent change, check to see if you have all the ingredients of the recipe. Put the sugar in, light the flame, and start stirring. Before you know it, your life will be a lot sweeter than it ever seemed!
May you find your sweet spot in life.
Pankaj Gupta
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