The Risks of Changing Your Life – By Chris Cade
One of the deep subconscious blocks we have to transforming our lives is the risk of the unknown. Specifically, the unknown risk that it’ll turn our lives upside-down.
That’s because any changes we make within ourselves affects all of our closest personal relationships, and especially intimate relationships.
For example, a few years into my spiritual journey, I made the incredibly difficult choice to file for divorce and leave the corporate world (and devote my life’s work to serving you).
The reason it affects our personal relationships is this…
Every relationship has a balance point. It’s the state of relationship in which both people subconsciously agree “this is how things should be and are going to be.”
When one person makes permanent and lasting changes, it disrupts the balance point because there’s only three possible outcomes:
(1) The other person accepts the changes as they are.
This can be either an actual acceptance, or just a co-dependent desire to not rock the boat. If it’s an actual acceptance, the relationship can reach the balance point again rather quickly. If it’s a desire to not rock the boat, then it will most likely eventually lead to possibility number two:
(2) The relationship ends.
This happens because the changes are so significant that both people can no longer agree (consciously nor unconsciously) on the balance point.
Sometimes it’s a literal end and a complete parting of ways. Other times it is the end of a particular way of relating, which results in a change of relationship (such as partners becoming friends). It happens because one person made notable changes while the other person was unable or unwilling to.
(3) The other person changes as well.
In an empowered relationship, this means that both people elevate their consciousness, change for the better, and ultimately find a new, more fulfilling balance point.
Circling back, remember this…
No matter which of those outcomes happens, when we change our lives we put ourselves AND others at risk.
At the most basic level, we risk our emotional stability and potentially being rejected. At a more serious level, we sometimes risk our health, home and livelihood – particularly if the changes in relationship involve the workplace (such as an employee taking more accountability, responsibility, or pushing for serious organizational changes).
In 2009 I risked it all. I filed for divorce, asked my employer to lay me off (which they did), and foreclosed on my home. In short, I faced both the emotional and practical consequences of risking everything I had and knew myself to be.
I pray that kind of severe upheaval doesn’t happen to others when they make big, important, and empowering changes in their lives. Yet it seems to be par for the course with many people.
With that in mind, when we’re reluctant to make changes in our lives we have to ask ourselves a very important yet rarely asked question:
“How much am I willing to risk to transform my life?”
Or phrased differently…
How much will you risk to have all the joy you’ve ever wanted?
How much will you risk for your freedom?
For your happiness?
For your health?
To attract that extraordinary romantic relationship your heart deeply yearns for?
If you aren’t willing to face the possibility of hurting yourself AND others, you’ll experience an inner reluctance. At least that’s what we call the nice, friendly “small” version of this emotion.
When reluctance gets too severe, we call it by a different name:
Fear.
Fast forward from the difficult times of 2009 into 2012 — when I had to go through a Dark Night of my Soul to understand that the risks of reluctance are VERY severe. I’d never wish it upon anybody else.
I used to call myself a “Reluctant Hero.” If you listen to old interviews with me, that’s how I’m introduced. That’s what my old bio said.
Eventually I realized that I couldn’t live that way anymore. I couldn’t be that person…
Because being reluctant is too risky. Far more risky than overcoming the fear, anxiety, doubts, and reluctance…
So that I can embracing all that the Divine wants me to have in this life.
My wish for you is that you look candidly at your own areas of reluctance.
Ask yourself whether the risk of reluctance is worth the reward of staying comfortable, safe, and not living up to your greatest potential.
Or if you’d rather have it the other way around…
It’s actually less risky in the long run.