Written by: Fran Pedron, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
34 years ago this month, my life changed. I made the conscious choice to live. July 14th is my sobriety birthday. That choice went against the grain of how I defined myself and my life. You may have made a similar choice. Most of us have something just as heavy that requires a major decision to be made.
At this point in time, you have lived a life full of joy, rewards, amazing memories and life lessons. Life lessons build character. How we react or respond to them is the factor, which determines the “how we live our life” quality.
What was your biggest, most mind-boggling life lesson? Was the course-correcting choice an easy or hard decision to make? Maybe you haven’t decided to make it yet.
How you answer that will strike you one of two ways. Either “I’m pleased with everything about my life,” or “If only I could do something differently, I wouldn’t have to struggle all the time.”
“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” — Anais Nin
Familiarity—The Epitome of Contentment or Pain
Familiarity by definition is: the quality of being well known; recognizability based on long or close association; close acquaintance with or knowledge of something. Do any of these give you that warm fuzzy yes feeling?
That yes is the deeply ingrained feeling of Deja Vue, and our brain showing us where we stand with familiarity. You know that “familiar unknown” face in a crowd; the “I’ve been here before” experience—are all stored in our brain’s perirhinal cortex. The perirhinal cortex is the area of the brain where the old seems new again.
Many love Deja Vue while others do not. It’s the familiarity principle of attraction in our basic nature that draws us to what is known. We repeat that exposure with people and experiences. We build comfort levels creating good and bad behaviors. And sometimes, we keep ourselves buried under a mask and from the truth.
When you describe yourself to the outside world, how different is it from the inside looking out? Have you ever wanted to stop: the experience you were in, the repeated patterns you’ve created, or anything that takes the life out of you—that old and boring reflection in the mirror that just doesn’t change? What did you find?
Many times, we fall into the grind, the discomfort, the self-abuse that sickens our quality of life, or the mediocrity that messes with our joy, abundance and stops us from living the life we always dreamed we would live. We just go through the motions or tread water, always remaining stagnant, feeling safe and secure in our domain of unhappiness, depression, low energy, and displeasure, while the life we desire passes right on by—leaving us where we choose to stay.
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” — William Arthur Ward
Looking At The Real Picture
Living the dream only happens when we honestly choose to discover what’s stopping us from our desired experience. What reasons do you choose for staying in your familiar? You might write them down and use them as your starting point for change.
Familiarity is staying out of the uncertainty of change and/or away from the failure outcome. Uncertainty feels like failure to our brains, and change is the only way out. Do you embrace change or run from it, as if it is contagious and will clutch the life out of you?
Change is the only certainty we face in life. We count on it, as each tick of the clock is heard, as the sun rises in the east and set in the west. To avoid change is to stay in repeated looping patterns, those patterns of choice which hog-tie us to victimhood.
Recognizing the signs, which build slowly over time, is a huge first step. Signs look like this:
every day appears the same—you don’t know where the last one ended and this one started;
you feel like you’re just trying to make it through the day—you’re not excited or inspired;
you feel unfulfilled and unmotivated—you can’t seem to get started or life is dull, boring and you don’t know where or how to start anything new;
fear determines your choice—the only choice is to stay away from risk, pain or failure;
keep reminiscing about the past—substituting happy memories from making present decisions;
your health and well-being are not priorities—you stop caring about you and choose a downward spiral;
nothing has purpose—no motivation exists to get you moving in any direction; the excuse you use to stay stuck is bound by believing that there is nothing else out there.
Knowing the signs leads to understanding why you choose to live in your choice. Whether you say, it’s financial or emotional, continuing to choose familiarity is a physical state of mind and can be overcome. Why takes many shapes and points toward comfort, expectation, accountability, effort, drive, and desire.
When you explore your comfort level, are you at a 1—the least, a 10—the most, or somewhere in between? What are you willing to do to hit 10 in every area of your life? The only way to start the climb is to determine: the payoffs you receive, how comfortable you are being stuck, and how you became stuck in your doldrums.
“Without remaining open to change, we cannot remain open to life.” — Ram Dass
Steps to Change Start With Saying Yes
You have determined where you are in comfort levels. Choosing to get uncomfortable, create new habits and commit to staying at 10 gives you a different payoff than you experience now.
These steps give you a roadmap to change success:
get out of denial – take responsibility for your choices;
uncover the real reason – dig deep for answers and then dig again after each answer you accept;
turn should(s) into must(s) – specific, definite action changes how you look at what you’re doing and where you’re going;
create healthy habits – it takes 21 days of purposeful action and reevaluation to create behavioral change;
take on a challenge – apply your commitment to current decisions while retraining your brain to expect positive outcomes;
get support – hire a life coach. When you get stuck, you need a professional to keep you on track, so backtracking is temporary.
Success brings forward movement. Forward movement provides tools to overcome uncertainty and failure while retraining the brain into your new, success-mindset definition and mode of operation.
Are you ready to commit to making an easier choice-change decision?
“Today is good. Today is fun. Tomorrow is another one.” – Dr. Seuss
Fran Pedron, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Fran Pedron combines intuition, education, and life experience to help clients understand their foundational self-definition, make changes and intention-purposed plans, which align with who they are as they create their desired outcomes.
Her experience in insurance, technology, accounting, communications, along with being abruptly downsized later in life, led her to understand how change affects people and their decision-making processes, along with the need to make decisions aligned with their authenticity.
Fran is the founder of Heart Driven Action, coaching and consulting. She is a certified Spiritual Coach, Mapping Strategist, certified in ThetaHealing, holding an M.A. in Journalism and B.S.B.A. in Business.
