The Catalyst For Change

This engaging talk by Veronica Clark delves into the journey of personal growth, transformation, and self-awareness. It illuminates that for changes to be truly meaningful and long-lasting, they must originate from an internal desire for self-improvement rather than an external drive to appease others or maintain a relationship.

Throughout this session, listeners are invited to explore the essential motivations that drive them to make meaningful changes in their lives. The talk emphasizes that true transformation involves embracing discomfort and releasing attachments to past conditioning. You are encouraged to reflect on cultivating authenticity from within and embracing life's lessons with an open heart, irrespective of past experiences, as you navigate your path toward personal wholeness.

Transcript

When do we start to change?

What causes us to want to change?

There's different things that lead to people wanting to change their lives,

Their behaviors,

Their personalities,

Their relationships.

There's all kinds of things,

But all of these kinds of changes require a certain level of motivation and desire.

Changing something about oneself is not an easy process,

And that's why most people start because it sounds good,

And maybe they are uncomfortable enough in that moment to think that change and changing something about themselves or their lives is the right answer for them,

But they don't have the capacity to follow it through.

They don't have the discipline and the desire isn't rooted deep enough in them to actually make the change.

In other words,

Staying the same is less painful for them than making the change,

And everybody's rock bottom or everybody's reason or let's say that everybody's rock bottom is different.

Everybody's I've had enough finally is different.

What some people can tolerate becomes intolerable to other people much sooner,

And so then they make the changes.

So how do you make change,

And what does it take?

What does it cost for you to change?

Making change is a very personal,

Intimate decision.

It requires you to look at yourself and want to be different.

So let's talk about making changes for other people.

Being in relationship with other people can inspire us to make changes faster than we might make them for ourselves,

And that's okay because we've been conditioned oftentimes to look outside of ourselves for motivation and inspiration.

So it can be really helpful when we have a catalyst like a relationship or someone outside of us that is inspiring us to change because we can make extremely positive changes for ourselves that will ultimately help us to love ourselves more and accept ourselves more and can gain a broader perspective of ourselves that we might not have been able to come to without the aid of the other person.

However,

If you are only making changes for another person and you don't truly see the intrinsic value in making the changes and how it can actually help you as a person,

Then those changes will be short-lived or you will be resentful if the person who you are making changes for doesn't treat you or respond to you the way that you had hoped that they would if you made the changes.

So you can see the downfall in that.

Now,

It doesn't have to be the case for everybody.

You could just make the changes and realize that you like the person that you've become and keep those changes even if you lose the relationship.

Awesome.

It's a win.

And you probably recognized what the gift of that relationship was,

Which was to be a catalyst for you to change.

But how does one want to make changes for themselves?

And I'm talking about big changes like personality changes,

Behavior changes,

Perspective changes.

You have to recognize that something in your life isn't working and it's affecting you in such a way that it is detrimental to your well-being.

That could be your finances,

That could be your mental health,

Your physical health.

Your well-being is being impacted.

So to make these changes you have to realize that it is going to cost you something.

There is a cost to every single thing and that's not a bad thing either.

It's just that you do have to give in order to get.

So what will you have to give in order to change?

You will have to become more patient with yourself and therefore give up impatience.

You will have to become and practice becoming much more relaxed and much more present.

And therefore you give up all the things that you have been using to distract you and to numb you or to help you avoid your current situation,

Which is what got you in the situation you're in in the first place.

So you have to really decide,

I'm going to become a different person.

I'm going to let go of all of the things that have been holding me back.

I'm going to start looking at myself differently.

I'm going to start looking at other people differently.

I'm going to be more observant of my relationships and see what my role has been in contributing to the situation that I'm in right now.

And we have to start evaluating whether or not the decisions that we've been making and the behaviors that we've been participating in are hurtful or helpful.

And obviously when,

Or not obviously,

When we've been making certain decisions in our lives that are detrimental,

Then we are participating in unhelpful behaviors and those have to stop.

And that's where the discipline comes in,

Where you stop behaving in ways that are not in your highest and best good,

Where they are not helping you to advance in your life.

You have to stop those things and you have to want your life to be better more than you want to keep numbing or avoiding or living in some reality where you're really avoiding the true reality.

So change,

Someone really has to look in the mirror and say to themselves,

I need to be different and I want to be different.

My life is going to be better if I am different.

And you've got to be the one who's going to keep inspiring yourself and motivating yourself every single day to make those changes.

And if you are only making changes because you want somebody else to love you,

You know,

You want to try to win them over,

You want to keep them,

Then that's not going to be sustainable.

That's just going to lead to resentment.

And if you don't want to make the changes because you feel like people don't understand you anyways,

Or you're not loved and you're not going to get loved,

And you are choosing to be a loner or choosing to isolate yourself or,

You know,

Hate the world,

So to speak,

Well,

You probably don't have the motivation to make the changes anyways.

And so the small changes that you make may not be big enough to be able to take you out of the mindset that you are in.

When you deeply,

Deeply desire to make change,

You can make the change.

Nobody can make you want to make changes before you're ready to.

You have to be honest with yourself to see if you are simply interested in making changes.

Looks good,

Sounds good,

But not worth the effort.

You got to be honest with yourself.

And then don't complain if your life isn't the way that you want it to be.

Don't complain about it to anybody,

Because if you're not going to do anything about it,

Then what's the point?

When you're ready to let go of suffering,

When you're ready to let go of the diseased mind,

That's when,

That's when you're going to that's when you start to practice surrender.

And you let go of everything that you thought you knew.

And you let go,

You're willing to let go of the person who you have been.

And you're no longer interested in being right.

You are interested in the person underneath all of those layers,

All of the conditioning,

The raw self that perhaps hasn't had a chance to be expressed because of all of the conditioning,

And all of the experiences that you've had up to that point.

Now you're ready to let it go.

And you become new to yourself.

You're curious about who you can be.

You can't rush this process.

Sometimes it's a slow process,

Because that's also part of your work,

Is learning how to be patient with yourself as you grow.

And just as you cannot rush the seasons,

You cannot rush the seasons of your evolution.

And some seasons last a little bit longer,

Some winters are a little longer.

And that's part of the purification process,

Releasing the old toxicity to reveal the pure essence of self.

Choose for yourself what you want.

What kind of life do you want to live?

How do you want to feel in your life?

What kind of relationships do you want?

How do you want to experience those relationships?

Do you want them to be open,

Connected,

Truthful,

Loving relationships?

Or do you want to have the opposite?

Do you want to keep believing that you will always get what you've gotten,

And therefore resign to staying the same?

It's up to you.

Your entire life is up to you.

Even when things happen that are out of your control that affect you,

It is always up to you how you will handle the situation,

What choices you will make about yourself,

About others,

And the world.

Ultimately,

About how you will play this game of life.

Every situation that you encounter is an opportunity for you to grow more,

For you to watch,

For you to wait,

For you to listen.

It is to help you to grow your skills as a human being,

Truly learning how to understand yourself,

Your capabilities.

You hinder yourself when you stay in a fixed mindset where you resolve not to make the necessary changes in your life because confronting yourself feels too uncomfortable.

If you don't yet know how to see yourself,

If you have some awareness that you are missing something,

People are telling you the same things,

And yet you cannot see it in yourself yet,

Ask for help.

Ask somebody who you trust to help you to see yourself clearly and that they are not making projections onto you,

But who are capable of respecting you and who can also be honest about some of the character traits or the behaviors that you have been displaying that are likely contributing to your life as it is now.

And then when you receive those reflections,

Be willing to examine them.

You must prepare yourself that it's not going to be comfortable.

We often don't like to see the negative,

The difficult parts about our behavior.

We like to defend them even if we know to a degree they're not serving us and even if they don't feel good.

If we're not ready to go through that ego death,

Then change will not happen to the degree that is possible for you.

So be prepared to be uncomfortable.

Be prepared to begin to have to see yourself in a new light and still love yourself through the difficult things that you see about yourself.

You are still lovable even if there are ugly things in your nature.

So do what you can now.

Make the changes now.

You're worth it.

People in your life are worth it.

But more than anything,

You are worth it.

You are worth discovering who you are and you are worth discovering what your gifts are.

You have so much magic and beauty inside of you.

We all do and we have to be willing to do the work to remove the layers that are keeping us from seeing that beauty,

That light.

But you can do it.

It doesn't matter what you've gone through in your life,

How horrendous,

How ugly,

How difficult it has been.

It doesn't matter how many terrible things that you have done.

You can move through all of the obstacles.

Ask for help and be willing to do the work on your own and be willing to die while you are alive so that you can birth the next level version of yourself.

You're worth it.

Until next time.

Reviews

Very good! Thank you for the motivating reminder! 💚🙏

What a wonderful talk. And so timely for me to find it in my feed today. Thank you! 🙏

Thank you for this brilliant and inspiring talk. You are so correct about the difficulty in changing areas of ourselves! Thank you for all of the reminders while in the process. Blessings to you 💜✨🙏🏽

Just truly amazing. Exactly where I'm at and so helpful to hear the words I have been trying to weave together to understand what I want. I am aware and ready to change and shed all of the conditioning to become myself for myself. Thank you, I look forward to hearing more through this metamorphical shift.

This hits differently each time I listen. Thank you 🙏🏾

♥️

So awesome thank you

Thank you for sharing your precious meditation with us, I love your voice and all your meditations, somewhere there is always a point in me that resonates, that is touched, thank you for your loving work.

Truly amazing

Love listening to you and your voice
Thank you 🙏🏻