Often on our courses, there are conversations with parents wanting their kids to stop fighting or to help out more and adults who are angry at their parents.

There are employees wanting their bosses to change and bosses despairing over their employees.

There are women who are fed up with the pressure to look young and beautiful and men who are fed up with the pressure to be strong or successful.

There are coaches or therapists who want to find the right words to create freedom or peace for their clients.

There are spouses who want their husband or wife to be more loving or helpful or less clingy or angry.

There are people who rage against or feel defeated within systems of discrimination, mis-information, pollution, unhappiness or limitation.

There are people who want to change the world, or at least their kids, partner, in-laws, client or boss.

Where do we begin with that?

How does the world get changed?

How do we change other people?

Let’s take this in three steps:

Step 1:
Let’s start with what the world is.

And that might seem an odd statement. Because the world is the world right? It’s just how things are reality in other words. People are just how people are.

Except none of that is true. There is no world and no other people in the way they appear. Everything that looks separate from me, is not. The me and the everything separate from it are made of the same conditioned thought and belief.

In the beautiful words of Steve Chandler, ‘We think that we live in the universe. In fact, the universe lives in us’.

Step 2:
Then let’s look at why we want the world to change.

I need the world to change so that I can feel different – more secure perhaps, safer, less pressurised, isolated or over-looked with more freedom or opportunity or success.

But because the way the world appears and the way the self appears are made of the same thing. I’m trying to change something that is only ever a mirror of me. And the more I fight it, the more real I make it. The more I resist, the bigger it looms.

Step 3:
Finally let’s work out whether the change we want is actually possible.

The only way to do that is to start with our own s**t.

Whatever the change we want to see out there, what is the equivalent of that in our own behaviour?

If I want my kids to clean up their room, let me check first that all my stuff is immaculately put away.

If I have a string of clients all wanting help sorting out a difficult relationship, let me do the work first. Let me resolve all my relationship issues before I even begin to say anything to them.

If I want others to stop judging me on my looks, I need to first work out how to stop judging them on their looks and of course how to stop judging myself.

If we want the world of discrimination, mis-information, pollution or limitation to change let’s deal first and foremost with our own discriminatory beliefs, the inaccuracies in the information that we put out in the world, with reducing every single polluting atom we create, the limitations we put on ourself and others…

In other words, I want to change the conditioning of others, their beliefs, their understanding, the unquestioned view of the world that is their operating system.

And that can only happen through the equivalent change in this system here. I need to show how it can be possible. Without that. Nothing.

And these three steps lead to three possible, magical outcomes

Outcome 1:
The behaviour ‘out there’ stops the moment we get real with it ‘in here’.

This is quite extraordinary when we see it actually happen but it makes absolute sense. The behaviour ‘out there’ was essentially a creation of our own unquestioned conditioning. It only appeared because of the insecurities of our own identity. Once those insecurities disappeared as the self illusion lost its grip, then the world changed accordingly. There was never anything to address ‘out there’ in the first place. Magic…

Outcome 2:
The behaviour continues but it is no longer required to change.

This is also magical and freeing. The self identity that was being buffeted around by every word, action, headline starts to be realised for what it is – a creation of imagination and belief. As it becomes obvious that nothing ‘out there’ will ever secure or stabilise a thought-created entity then the world no longer has to change for us to become secure. It becomes clear that nothing is personal. Identification falls away. The conditions that hung heavily on the world are removed. Change is no longer required.

Outcome 3 :
The behaviour continues and sane, authentic and clear action is taken.

As the world is seen for what it is—a thought-created world made of the same beliefs as the self identity—sanity returns. There is more presence, stillness and space to meet whatever arises. And into that space might well come behaviour (either apparently ours or others’) that is out of alignment with the love and peace we know ourselves to be. And we watch as actions are taken and words are said, free of resistance, free of the idea that something ‘should’ be different, free of any sense of superiority or separation.

Just words and actions that, because they come from the deepest place of authenticity and unconditional love, are almost impossible to ignore.

If you would like to explore influence and change live with us over the course of May and June, Click here for more information.