The Transformation of You

A six-month plan for your own metamorphosis

The Transformation of You is all about you: in essence, a six-month plan for your own metamorphosis.
It’s about living intentionally, focused on what you are choosing for yourself, for the world. Transformation is far more about being than doing, that’s true. Yet your intentions inform your actions, and your actions create your life. 

Keep your eyes on this page as we move through the next 6 months with these life-altering themes.

TRANSFORMATION OF YOU INTRODUCTION

Here at Odyssey, we see our whole world shifting and changing right now in a way that most of us have never experienced. Even the weather patterns aren’t familiar anymore. And for many in our circle, there are also internal breezes stirring, along with the occasional storm.

Understandably, this can create anything from concern to anxiety, to out and out fear. George Orwell said, “They fear love because it creates a world they can’t control.”  and it’s true. We human beings do like to believe we have control – some of us more than others – even to the point of restricting the ways in which we give and receive love.

Change, though, can also bring curiosity, excitement and openness. A love of what’s to come. As the Odyssey team, we see all this movement and stirring as an invitation, rather than a call to hide under the covers. And so the theme for this first issue under our guidance is – METAMORPHOSIS. A fancy name, perhaps, for change. I love the Merriam Webster definition – a striking alteration in appearance, character, or circumstances. If everything around us is going to shift, why not welcome it all, and embrace the opportunity to become even more truly ourselves?

The Transformation of You is all about you: in essence, a six-month plan for your own metamorphosis. It’s about living intentionally, focused on what you are choosing for yourself, for the world. Transformation is far more about being than doing, that’s true. Yet your intentions inform your actions, and your actions create your life. 

Let’s look at our lives as a journey, shall we? We are born into a certain location with a terrain – perhaps a deciduous forest. The family you are born into is your basecamp, and you either stay in that particular setting or move about with them until you’ve grown strong enough to strike out on your own. The timing of that step differs for us all, but one day life shows you that you are ready and you lace up your boots, swing on your backpack and you are off. You find your way and veer to the right at the first fork in the road, which determines the rest of your life, of course. You may come to a clearing you like and put down roots, staying for years and years until you get the itch to move on. Perhaps you’d like to be closer to water, or have an open view, and one day, you pack up and head out on the path again. The next stop might be another long one, allowing you to settle in and get used to living at the foot of a mountain, say, with a stream running nearby. You have everything you need; you’ve learned to fish and to garden and all is well. Until maybe a lovely person wanders by and the two of you decide you’d like to see what the world looks like from the very top of that mountain. You begin the arduous hike together. And so on. Life is easier if you just stay where you are originally planted. Yet for many of us, the urge to change lifestyles eventually calls us forward. No one path is better or worse than another, of course. Just different.

And every single time, there is a particular rhythmic process that we go through.  Though we often forget, don’t we, in between adventures?

For the next six months, we will be sharing content on our website to support all of us in this season of change. Everything from astrological updates to mind/body/spirit practices, to inspiring stories of those who have walked all sorts of paths and lived to tell about it. Just follow the link or QR code to view the latest updates. In the next four pages, you’ll find some excerpts and insights into what is to come. You’ll find all of this expanded on within the Odyssey site between now and September.

As always, we’d love to hear from you about what’s helpful and any topics you’d like to see included as we walk this path together.

1- AWAKENING

As we begin to awaken – and this happens repeatedly throughout a lifetime, we first need to greet within, to figure out who we are at this juncture. The custom here in South Africa is always to greet before beginning a conversation, a lovely practice. And yet do we greet ourselves each day?

We human beings forget about this first step all too often, having been conditioned to look to the external for so much. Beginning our day by greeting ourselves allows us to briefly come home to ourselves and then, as the day goes on, those around us. A few minutes in meditation, with our feet on the grass, or even looking in the mirror at our own image, sets up our sense of wholeness, worthiness and self-compassion for the day to come. It is a reminder that this is why we are undergoing these shifts and changes. Of who we are and why we are here in the world.

                Curiosity

  • Accepting what is true now
  • Clear seeing
  • Greeting what is with love

2- ALLOWING

When we begin to look with kinder, more open eyes at our journey to this point, it’s quite inevitable that Stuff Will Come Up. It’s just how it works. We all have old tapes playing negativity nonstop in our minds – beliefs, judgements, rules. Often, they are buried so deeply in our psyches that we don’t even realise that they don’t belong to us. And mostly, they no longer apply. Present-day you, when you think about it, will likely no longer have any connection to any of it. Yet there it all is, living rent-free in your head! Identifying what no longer serves you is a huge step in creating transformation.

               Compassion

  • Self acceptance
  • Self compassion
  • Making friends with uncertainty

3- SHEDDING

Once you know what needs to be released – it’s time to let it go. If you want your life to change, you’ll need to create space for the new to come. Makes sense, especially if you think of it as literal clutter – or even hoarding! You’ve taken the time to see what is, now it’s time to release what no longer serves you or fits in the life you want to live. Once you know what you no longer need or want in your life, the spiritual decluttering (so to speak) can begin. This applies to habits, beliefs and behaviours – all the things that have been holding you back. To make space for your future to arrive, it’s inevitable that what no longer serves you will need to be shed.

Courage

  • Discerning what’s now needed
  • Releasing what no longer serves
  • Creating space for what is to come

4- BECOMING

Ah. Now there is space – to mix my metaphors, you’ve got a big blank canvas in front of you and now it’s time to really spend some time on your vision. This can be anything from prayer, to literal vision boards, to reading inspiring stories of those who have walked similar paths. Creating stillness and being comfortable in pausing to envision and dream, is such a rich space for bringing yourself to life in a different way. To make space for intentional dreaming is a gift to yourself, and to ask for what you truly want is your right as a human being. We forget this, don’t we, as we run around “doing”?  Taking time to just “be” gives you the opportunity to discern what you’d like to become.

Acceptance

  • Creating stillness and space
  • Intentional dreaming
  • Allowing your desires

5- INTEGRATING

Just like playing a new sport, change takes practice. You have at least conceptual plans of where you’d like to end up next, a vague map drawn up. Practices are, in essence, what will get you there. Your structure. Your support system.
They are also a wonderful form of self-compassion. Anything from moving your body daily, to eating well, to having a consistent ancestral or spiritual ritual will help you stay on the path, with ease, peace and joy. It’s about giving yourself what you need to succeed. To thrive amidst whatever life brings. This too, takes intentionality. New neural pathways are literally created in this phase – it takes twenty-one days, it’s said, to create a new habit or pattern.  And in ninety days, it integrates fully. This is fertile ground for change, always.

Grounding

  • Practicing new ways
  • Boundaries to maintain space
  • Patience with all that is

6. EMERGING

We can get stuck in seeking, can’t we? And certainly in perfectionism! It’s easy to stay in that planning phase, or “forget” to practice new patterns. So perhaps the most important part of any metamorphosis is to let go of trying, and just fly. Live your life. That’s when the magic truly happens: in the day to day of it all. And scary as it may sound, the very best learning comes from failure, always. Think of a baby learning to walk. It’s inevitable (and even charming) that they will fall on their behinds repeatedly until that day when suddenly, it clicks in and they toddle all day long without a second thought. Life is like that. So is transformation. Truly, this being human is all learned through on the job training. So if in doubt, leap and trust that the net will appear. It always does, even if there’s a bit of freefall first. 

Celebration

  • Letting go of perfectionism
  • Allowing the new ways to arrive
  • Trusting that all will be well