Many people write and talk about making great changes and strides in life from the inside out – but few discuss the idea of making change form the outside in. The Law of Attraction has you focus on your thinking. Others have spoken about PMA positive mental attitude. Many fall in to the “fixing” your “self-talk”. And they all have validity. We can and do make changes from the inside out. However, it is a slow process. The reason it is so slow is that the inner change takes time to influence your belief system. Once it has it still takes time to influence the world around you.
The world around you is a statement of who you were in the past. Your environment adapted itself to perfectly reflect who you are. When you start to change, the change must be real and rooted before the reflection in your environment changes. It will ultimately change if the inner change is real and sustained. But it will take time for the environment to change.
One of the most exciting ideas that I have ever come across is the idea of environmental design. The idea says that not only is the environment a reflection of your past, but, you also adapt to your environment. The two are in this cosmic dance that keep playing off each other. Think of it as a checks and balances system of your personal life. If you change your inner world, you will need to be patient for your external world to reflect it. If you change your environment, it will pull you and you will adapt eventually.
There is a lot to be said for addressing both areas at the same time. If you do, you are looking at a quantum growth pattern. Your environment will bring adaptation, your inner world will cause reflection. If I adapt and reflect in the same direction things happen much faster.
Let’s look a little deeper into the environmental design side. Everything around you either adds to your energy or drains your energy. The things that give you pleasure and peace are energy adders. On the other hand those things that irritate you when you see them are energy drains. The missing button, the broken fixture, the unpaid debt are all things that we tolerate, but easily become irritating. Clutter of all kinds are energy drains. The messy desk, room or storage area that has become a junk pile of stuff that you don’t want or need that you are saving for someone who will never use it is a huge toleration. Getting out from under it is incredibly liberating. Until you do, they drain energy. Although you might not realize it, that drain takes away from other things that you want to do.
So how do you get started designing your environment? Truth be told the discussion is a much longer discussion than this forum permits. However, there is a way to start that is very powerful and that is by zapping your tolerations.
Here is the process. First we need to list all the things we are tolerating. Know what the things are that drain your energy. NOTHING IS TOO SMALL IF YOU ARE TOLERATING IT. List them. After you have made the list of things that you are tolerating in your life, start zapping them. If your button is missing, get a new button sewn on so you don’t have to tolerate it any more. Fix or replace the broken fixture. Make arrangements about the debt so that you are addressing it instead of being irritated and drained by it. Clear the clutter. Throw it away, give it away, or sell it. The main thing is to get rid of it.
Many tolerations can be zapped with little cost or no cost. Some have a price tag. Zap as much as your resource allow. Before you know it your resources will have grown and you can finish the job. Start small, but start. You will quickly experience the difference and have the benefits of working from the outside in.
Slightly North of Awesome 