Changing Your Landscape

For the past few years, I've suffered more than my fair share of job losses. Being your classic overachiever and highly functioning professional, you can imagine what that did to my pysche. My self-imposed state of being was being tested. The first job loss was loud, yet deafening. My mental state was in complete mayhem, it was if my thoughts became tornadic. All of them were dark, fast and destructive. I didn't understand WHY this was happening and honestly, I didn't want to KNOW why, I just wanted everything back to normal, back to the "predictable". I wanted my "predictable" paycheck back, I wanted my "predictable" day to day schedule back, I wanted my "predictable" day offs back, basically, I wanted my familar way of living back. But something in my spirit turned on after the third job loss in three years (the old folk always did say that it comes in "threes"). Finally, two additional job losses later, I finally "hit me". A life full of familarity and predictability is like living a slow death. You will not grow in a controlled environment, you will either get worse or stay in the exact same state. When you alter/change a controlled variable, the test subject will almost always undergo some kind of change. And in life, simply taking a break from something whether it be a job, a physical location or from a person; it will never be enough to evoke change. You know that what you left is still in tact and waiting for you. But what do you do when what is left isn't waiting for you anymore? You are forced to find a new place to go or you can CREATE a new environment for yourself. Don't ever start believing that you don't have a choice as to what you want out of life. You will always be in control of where you end up. But you have to accept the fact that you can not and will not be able to do it by yourself. God will provide you with the roadmap, some gas, a vehicle, and some people along the way to get you to a better landscape or He will either place many roadblocks in your path to get you going in the right direction.



It is crucial that you become familiar with your inner voice because it tells you when you need to change your direction. If you ignore it, God will intervene and trust me, when He intervenes, he PRUNES!! And pruning hurts but it is so very necessary if you want to harvest fruit. The back to back job losses were my pruning experience. I KNEW that my life had become so mundane and stifling. The truth is, I wanted a change; I needed a change, I was too afraid to allow myself to imagine or even move into living differently because I didn’t know what the landscape would look like once I moved. I wondered, will I like it? Will it be fun? Would I have more money? Would my friends and family be there? I was finding every excuse in the world to keep from paying attention to the inner discomfort I was feeling. Instead, I filled my time up with noisy distractions to hopefully drown out the quiet voice that was telling me to “do something else”. I can tell you fear is one hellavu drug! God gave me opportunity after opportunity to get on the right track, but I kept seeking the familiar and the ritualistic day to day routine because it was comfortable. Let me tell you, comfortable don’t win no awards! You will not triumph in comfortable; you will not accomplish what you are destined for in comfort. When you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, CHANGE YOUR LANDSCAPE!   



Changing your landscape means accepting that you will be walking into unchartered territory. EVERYTHING will be new. If it’s too scary for you to think about critically but you don’t want God to start pruning; I suggest that you start making small changes. Start building your confidence by implementing small but yet strengthening activities. Start by changing your drive home, start my saying positive affirmations out loud every morning, take a bath one day instead of a shower, walk up and give a stranger $20 one day out of the blue, hell, go buy different color apparel than you’re used to! Just do some things DIFFERENTLY and I promise, you will start to SEEING a change in your life. Get used to change, embrace it, practice it and your LANDSCAPE will start to change to reflect the your seasons of life and there will be beauty and joy in it all.



Happy Travels!