Renovating Your Life

There is much inner work required to transform a life, and it begins with transforming ourselves.

My life is under construction. A work in progress that requires me to be in an evolutionary process of change and transformation. A process of deconstruction and reconstruction.

In order to make changes, I first need to let go of the old, to create space for the new. But what I have come to realize is, that the crew that is brought in to tear down, has a certain skillset, a certain mindset for removal, and it requires a completely different crew with a different focus and skillset to build something new.

I realized that I had the necessary courage and skillset to let go of the things in my life that were not working, but having demolished a majority of my known life, I found myself lost at ground zero for a very long period of time.

I stood in the rubble, slowly clearing away residual emotional debris, and looked out into the nothingness that surrounded me. I had done a stellar job at demolishing, but, I did not have as yet, all the skills necessary to begin to rebuild a solid foundation.

If I began to rebuild my life as the same person that created the life I just let go of, then, I would inevitably recreate the same life, with the same patterns and choices.

There is much inner work required to transform a life, and it begins with transforming ourselves. I was to become someone I did not know yet.

The known self will want to jump in and run the show, reconstructing from a known familiar place, and rebuild a familiar life.

Staying in a holding pattern at ground zero is difficult. Our tendency is to want to make choices quickly to get out of the discomfort of the unknown. But, if we linger there for a while, looking around, observing, listening, discerning, we will find that we begin to draw upon skills we didn’t realize we have. Skills that will be necessary for the re-build.

It takes courage to change a life. Both the courage to let go of the known, and the courage to step into a new version of ourselves. To do this, we also need to summon up the courage to look deeply into ourselves, to understand what is driving us, what patterns and self-limiting beliefs are running the show and holding us back.

We may not have all of the tools that we need at the moment to rebuild, but life will provide circumstances at ground zero, which will help us to learn the required tools for the job.

I realized that I could not call in an architect to reconstruct my life. I would need to call upon the creativity of my inner architect to develop a new plan. And while my mind may come up with a vision, I would still need to organically and psychologically grow into that vision.

I would need to gather courage, discipline, commitment, focus, clarity, resilience, support and intuitiveness to begin to construct a new framework. I would need to give myself the time for my vision, and to evolve with that vision, and I would need to access the many tools necessary for its implementation.

To change means creating a new blueprint, either adding to the existing structure, or in some cases demolishing and starting anew. Either way, it is an ending of the known, a letting go of the familiar, and a journey into the unknown.

Sometimes we begin with knowing what we don’t want, and make the necessary changes to release what no longer serves us. For some, the vision of what we do want is not quite clear yet. What we do want will be found in the space in-between leaving the known and stepping into our new vision.

This in-between time is both a time of uncertainty and creativity. How we navigate this in-between time, can determine the length of time we stay at ground zero, and the quality of the time we spend there.

Being conscious of the need for a new crew to come in for the re-build helps us to understand that we need to make the inner shift, to become the new version of ourselves. And, there will be opportunities to practice this new version of ourselves.

Your inner architect may come up with a few new versions for a re-build. It is at this time, in this in-between time that we practice and try things on for size, see how it fits and feels. It is a time of experimentation, and questioning to come up with our own answers, and to find our own unique way.

Life is a process of renovating, re-decorating, re-visioning, de-constructing and re-constructing ourselves towards creating our most beautiful life. What do you want to create?