When you take up the challenge of Metanoia, the challenge of transformation, you are commiting to a struggle, a struggle that will involve all the strength and faith that you can endure. For true transformation doesn't come easily or without cost. Transformation requires pushing against all the internal and external forces that push back and tell you to go back to your former ways, go back to the status quo.
Internally this happens because we develop habits and ways of doing things and thinking about things that become automatic. Some say like well worn paths in our brain that neurons can transfer information down zippety quick
. To change behaviors and thought in order to grow and transform requires making new neuropathways which requires effort, much like clearing paths in an overgrown field. And effort can be fatiguing especially when the worn paths are right there easy, beckoning and ready to use.
It also requires letting go of old defense mechanisms that allow you to avoid and escape pain so that you can tend to your wounds and start the process of healing, and for some exposing those wounds to light is a pain fairly close to unbearable.
Externally there are family systems, work systems or social systems that are resistant to change. When individuals change their part in these systems there is often a pressure to get back to the status quo. There could be a cost to these types of changes from the others who can not or will not tolerate your change. Others eventially adapt and the system itself will change.
So change is hard. Endurance is required. Counting the cost is necessary, and rallying your support system as well as your courage is essential. Know that transformation often offers unfathomable rewards, but don't fool yourself into believeing there are not costs as well. And for some the rewards, come not in this lifetime, and perhaps not in your lifetime, but that does not mean that the effort is not worth the cost. Often the fruits of the most beautiful transformations outlive the the individuals fighting for a new way. Don't give up. Have a spirit of transendence, and endure like so many couragous ones before you have endured. In the end you have the unique privelege of changing the legacy of those who come after you.
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