A Change Of Place Would Do You Good

Place has such tremendous power over your life. Each of us is shaped to almost a frightening extent by the company we keep and the places we frequent. Often, places hold their subconscious hold upon us long after the events that occurred there have faded into the distant past.

If your thought patterns seem to persist upon the same tracks, seemingly beyond your power to control, you could do well to examine the power of place.

For example, I recall the time I attended a reunion in the hall of residence I had lived in for six years during my university education. The place definitely had associations for me; both positive and negative. I had done a lot of growing up there. Five years had past since I had last seen the place. Yet it seemed like yesterday. At each turn, I remembered scenes - little vignettes - that kept popping up into my brain. It truly felt as if I had never left.

More importantly, I could almost feel some of the same emotions I had experienced so powerfully there; feelings I had forgotten even having in the intervening five years away. Yet, they were all hidden away, deep in my inner psyche, waiting to be triggered by this place.

It is as if we store away an internal model of the places we spend time in. By visiting those places again, even years later, that internal model meets the outer reality, and the stored feelings are released once more.

How Place Can Trap You Into Stasis

The power of place can keep you rooted and fixated in certain habit patterns. This may be for good or ill. Sadly, in most people's lives, the latter tends to predominate. They find themselves caught in fixated patterns of thought. Thus, their reactions and interactions in the outer world are far less enlightened that their highest aspirations might wish. However, it is not limited to that. "Place" can also refer to a long-standing relationship, a work situation, or even an entire industry in which you have based your career.

Often, the only way to rapidly change your thought patterns to more closely conform with your desires is through a radical change of place. Otherwise, your best intentions for self-improvement will be continually overwhelmed by the tidal wave of external forces sweeping in. If you are trapped in a leaky lifeboat in the midst of a stormy ocean, bailing the water out with a little tin cup won't be effective for very long.

Here is another example from my own life. For nearly eleven years, I worked within the Investment Banking industry. Truly, this is not an environment in which to open up your heart too wide or seek for loving proactive interactions with fellow human beings! Over time, as a result of many bitter disappointments and perceived betrayals, I became a person filled with cynical thoughts, negative expectations of my own future, and suspicious of the intentions of those around me. In many cases, my own attitude actually ended up creating the reality that I least wanted to manifest. Moreover, these realities seemed to recur wherever I went. Different faces - same situation.

Being In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time

Of course, part of the problem is indisputably related to simply being in the wrong place. Each of us has a role and a purpose; a reason for why we came into this life. If you choose to deny it, and instead enter an arena that is not really your own, trouble is the inevitable consequence. If you are simply in the wrong life arena for you, that is sufficient cause for many of your afflictions. What comes seemingly with ease to others appears impossible to you, or only attainable after much suffering.

If you are in the right place, doors open and Providence seems to help us. Conversely, if you are in the wrong place, the opposite happens and doors magically slam shut; seemingly defying the laws of probability to do so.

Thus, I found myself frustrated and negative. It seemed impossible to improve my thinking from negative to positive, despite my best intentions and all the motivational tapes in the world. What caused the breakthrough for me in the end?...

Change The Place To Break The Trap

It was nothing more profound than a change of place! In the past few years, I have been absent from the arena that had caused me so much pain. As a result, my true human sensibilities have begun to return with ever increasing force. Many positive attitudes I last saw as a pre-teenager are returning to support me in all I do. Criticism, bitterness and anger play a lesser part in my thoughts. I can take some positive new chances now.

The benefits of personal development - through reading, tapes and other media - can now take root and grow strongly without continually being swept away and destroyed by the force of external circumstances.

In conclusion, a change of place can do you good. If you seem to get nowhere in your hopes of personal growth, if everyday life seems to overwhelm you, and adds power to the negativity within you, consider making a radical change of place; in whatever way is appropriate to your situation. The results will truly astonish you.

Copyright 2000, Asoka Selvarajah. All Rights Reserved.