Inherent in life is growth.  In order to feel alive you and I must continue our growth process.  Inherent in growth is change.  It is that simple - if you desire to feel alive then you invest yourself in your growth process.  And, you embrace change as part of that process.  Note that I said this was a simple process, no place did you read the word easy.  For me, change can be a challenge. 

     I have observed that most people don't really care for change.  I have often given lip service to how wonderful it is, and in my heart know this to be true.  But, even as I write this I am in a decision making process in my own life that includes many potentially difficult changes and can tell you I am still intimidated by the process.  I "talk the talk, and walk to walk" of change for the majority of the time, however, you will come to see through reading my book and/or participating in my "Writing the Soul; Journaling to Wholeness" program that at one point in my life, I was so uncomfortable with the change process of that my class and book materials came into existence.  I developed a whole program around making this simple idea of change easier. 

     I will be very up front and direct, because that is my style of doing things - on occasion the process of change scares the blazes out of me.  This happens especially if the change resembles anything remotely "risk-like".  That is not to say that I don't take risks, but I have never been fond of what I would have called the "risk-taking dilemma".  It has taken much work at my own process to see risk taking as something to be excited about rather than something to dread, but I have reached a point in my life where I call risk taking an adventure.  Although I would have told you previously that I was really good at taking small risks, but is that an oxymoron?  If it is small is it a risk?

     How is risk measured?  Is it by size of the act?  With this, I would disagree.  I have done many things in my life that would appear to be very large to the on-looker.  Personally, these big actions in the world didn't faze me.  Getting my doctorate didn't seem like a risk for me at all.  It was a lot of work, but it wasn't frightening.  Yet, I can tell you about having to make one simple phone call that nearly pushed me over my personal edge.  And this was a call to someone I knew!  Granted it was a call to request help, and asking for help ranked right up there with the whole "risk-taking dilemma", but how crazy is that?  I can work six years on a degree doing all sorts of public speaking, being judged on my work, etc., but it takes two weeks to make a three minute phone call to someone I know and ask assistance.

     So if it isn't the size of the action what is it?  I have to say that it is the amount of tension surrounding the circumstances.  And, what is tension, but a form of energy.  What I realized at the moment this thought came to me was that everything in life from growth, to change, to risk-taking, is all about energy, how it is used and what it creates.  With this awareness, I knew that I better figure out what was going on with the energy in my life.

     What's going on with the energy in yours?