Christine Bradstreet

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Does Change Really Have to Be so Hard?

We think making change has to be hard. And painful, don’t forget, it should hurt, right? Somehow, if we have to struggle for something it feels more meaningful.

Plus, the changes we’re trying to make look huge in our minds. There’s baggage that’s been there a long time, maybe even a lifetime. It feels like a dark monster has a grip on us.

Some of it might feel too terrifying to even peak at it.

What if I told you, change doesn’t have to be hard?

We have a tendency to believe transformation has to be difficult or painful, but who’s voice is telling you that? Why does change have to be hard?

Admit it, more than once you’ve resented someone who makes life look too easy. That’s because you think it has to be hard.

Change can be hard if you want it to be, but is that what you really want?

Yes it can take effort, time, openness, and willingness, but let’s not label that as hard.

Transformation is a release. It’s an opening up. A letting go.

What’s easier to do, lift a heavy weight or drop it?

If change feels hard, it’s only because you don’t know how to let it go, or you’ve been unwilling to let it go.

Let’s challenge the common belief that change has to be hard and it has to hurt.

You’ve been told your entire life that change is hard. It’s what the experts say, after all, so you probably never thought to challenge it.

In case you hadn’t noticed yet, I love to ask probing questions to break down the thoughts and beliefs that limit us. I want you to ask these same questions:

Okay, change has to be hard.

Says who?
Why?
Is this legitimate, or do I believe it because everyone else does too?
And who is this “everyone” person anyway? Why do I listen to them instead of myself?
Is it possible change doesn’t have to be hard?

What does hard even mean?

Aren’t there things in life you had to work for, but you were so excited for the outcome that the work didn’t feel hard?

The belief that change has to be hard and or painful is nothing more than a limiting belief.

It’s a belief that’s stopping you before you even start. It’s getting in the way of you making the changes and growth you want to make to live your most amazing life.

Hard is just a label and labels are flimsy.

“Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or badbut thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison. Well, then it isn’t one to you, since nothing is really good or bad in itself — it’s all what a person thinks about it. And to me, Denmark is a prison.” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Those people who make change look so easy? They don’t believe it has to be so hard. Yes they did the work, but they didn’t make themselves feel like prisoners to the process.

“Hard” is relative and subject to perspective.

Hard compared to what?

You know what’s hard? Carrying around all that crap every day of your life. That gets really heavy. It causes mental anguish. I makes your body hurt and do weird things.

Dropping those weights and living in one-ness with your true spiritual self, that’s the easy part.

You can fight and kick and struggle to do that, but why?

We attract a life that makes our beliefs seem true.

If you believe change has to be hard, life will give you examples of that. If you believe it’s possible that change can flow with ease, you’ll be shown examples of that instead.

So step one in your next level of change is to let go of the belief it’s going to have to be hard or hurt.

Release that belief.

I step into these changes with grace and in perfect timing.

The more you can surrender into the release process, the more effortlessly it’ll happen.

Enter into change with a childlike wonder about the gifts that will unfold. Embrace and be grateful for it.

There are changes out there for you that you don’t even know you want to make yet. Be excited for them to show up. How cool is that?