A Positive Change began in February 2014 when a client I’ve had worked with for almost six years limped into my studio. Several months earlier, Karen was visiting her horse, and it accidentally kicked her when it was spooked. That kick destroyed Karen’s knee. In 2009, when I was suffering through a fourteen-month “Dark Night of the Soul” depression, Karen had patiently talked with me, loved me, reassured me, and gently pointed me back to my path when I slipped off the trail. That day in February, though, Karen was feeling down.

She’s had leg problems before, but this time, it was really getting to her. Each session, she would walk in and seem to feel worse than the previous week until finally, in that February, she announced she was getting a new knee. However, the excitement of a new knee quickly wore off, and within a couple of weeks, she was feeling apprehensive about the surgery. I did my best to hold a safe space for her. It was my turn to listen to her, love her, and try and be a friend.

Karen is a very independent spirit. She is a minister, she is strong, athletic, and a giver. And, she is not good at being in a weak frame of mind. Yet, in the weeks before her surgery, she was expressing considerable distress. She was distraught and fearful about going under the knife. Questions like, what if it doesn’t work? Plus, the whole threat and fear from major surgery kept racing through her head. I decided to send her a note every day to help her stay grounded. She was bothered by depending on people for her care, so my very first note to her was simply: “Karen, Try and ask for a hug from someone today.”

I repeated this message for a few days, “It takes a strong person to ask others for love and help. I know you’re a strong person.  Please try to ask for a hug today”. Karen did. It started to make a difference in how she saw herself. That’s Positive Change! On the 17th of March, she sent me this text: “Good morning Blair, looking forward to your lovely messages. Have a great day we will see you tomorrow, thanks again, Karen”.

With that message from her, my Positive Change began, and my notes started to widen their scope a bit.

March 21st: “We humans like to fret and worry about protecting ourselves inside. We then try to find solutions to enact some protection. Yet, when we do, we limit God’s possibilities to work in our lives. Try not to give in to negative emotion. Let God secretly transform you instead. Breathe In: I am perfect. Breathe out: I am whole.”

March 27: “Only by removing your humanity, your emotional programs for survival, can you deeply get to know God. Part of this journey is seeing yourself not as you do, but as God does. Say, ‘I am perfect, I am whole, even when I don’t feel like it …in God’s eyes I am.’”

April 7: “When you feel emotions and suffering, as painful as it is, it’s best to try and ground yourself in the center of your being. God loves you. God will not let you have more than God knows you can take. There are never two sets of footprints in the sand. There is only God’s.

Are you feeling anything? Be aware of it. See how that feeling wants to influence you?

Repeat:
I am perfect.
I am whole.
Even…. if I don’t feel like it.”

I had established a pattern of Positive Change affirmations for Karen. Each week Karen and I would meet, and she would always ask me to continue my messages.

April 16: “New challenges arrive today! Both good ones and difficult ones. When something changes how you feel, it becomes easier to see how God sees us. But remember, how we think is all in our head. God sees us a perfect and whole all the time.

Are you feeling anything?

April 24: “The still small voice speaks under the emotion one feels. To listen, one has to see how they feel and then see past that. It’s difficult when we feel it, but with awareness, we can see through our feelings to the voice of God, which is always speaking in our hearts.

Are you feeling anything? Is it influential in your decisions or perception?

Positive change is a process that grows in us. Jesus, the great wisdom teacher 2000 years ago, said the mustard seed grows into the mighty plant with proper cultivation. As I wrote more messages, Karen found truths about herself inside of herself, and I also found truths in me that I needed to understand. We both experienced a positive change in different ways. Soon, other people were asking for these encouraging notes.

The messages became more about areas of my life where I needed to grow. God was working on me as I couldn’t specialize the notes to every individual wanting one. Positive Change also requires practice. And, for me, these almost daily messages have been that practice. The messages always seem to have emotions tied into them somehow. If you’ve been reading my blog or website, that won’t be a surprise. I believe the way to meet our highest self is through the emotional programs we have built that we hide behind. Only by seeing through how we feel from minute-to-minute can we know the person God or the Universe has created.

We were created perfect and whole. We learned, were taught, developed, and absorbed programs to survive emotionally and sometimes physically. When we see past those programs, we begin to see ourselves the way we really are. That awareness is what I call Positive Change. With awareness, we can see ourselves with bigger eyes. These messages are an almost daily exercise in doing that. It’s Positive Change through practice!