Color Outside the Lines - By Cynthia Wiles

When we get stuck and all the old ways just don’t fix it anymore, it’s time to ‘color outside the lines’. This means trying something new. A new hairstyle, a new place to jog, anything brand new. We have to change our approach to life, something is not working.

One method that always works is to show an active faith by getting ready for change.
Change can be scary, change can feel so uncertain, so choppy and as though there is no rhythm to our lives. Well that’s exactly what we need, to change the pace and the old rhythm.

There are so many ways to achieve this. I have found the very best way for myself and so many clients and friends is to simply start making room for change by discarding the old.
As we start making room for change by cleaning out closets of old, unused clothing and shoes, as we sort through mountains of dusty paperwork, we are changing far more than out physical surroundings. We are creating order out of chaos. We attract harmony when our surroundings are harmonious. We are cleaning the outward and it soon manifests in the inward. We are actively doing something to show God we are ready for this. We are not sitting in the dark whining, we are not waiting for a magic lamp to drop out of the sky and make it all better for us. We are showing an active, rather than a passive faith. Life has seasons just as the earth has. We often await the right season to sow seeds and later we reap the harvest. Start sowing the seeds of your own good now.

We then need to look carefully at the people in our lives. When we notice that spending an afternoon with Diane always leaves us depressed and unhappy we make a choice to see less of Diane. We are honoring and nurturing ourselves. We still love Diane and pray for her however we do not allow her negativity to affect us.

When we notice the one we love has pulled away, we can choose to panic and spend our waking moments in fear. We can choose to attack them with words and accusations born of fear and desperation. We can make ourselves miserable and sick by doing and saying hurtful things. Or we can choose to love them, accept that they may have things in their lives that are taking prominence for the moment. We can push aside our ego and allow them the freedom of leaving and of coming back. We can also decide that the pain of this relationship is too much we do not feel loved and honored. Then quietly, calmly, detach ourselves from the relationship and allow change to come to it. Anything we hold onto tightly, greedily, fearfully, is choked. Anything we choke, suffocates and dies.