If you want to change your life, change your paradigm.   People are resistant to change. That's just the way we are.

No matter how badly a person wants to change, they will resist. Why? Our
minds prefer a routine. The longer we're stuck in a routine the more difficult it is to escape, even when we know it's not a good thing.

When change occurs - your mind perceives it as a threat and activates your
stress response. You may want to change but you never thought it would be so hard to stop doing the same things over and over again.

Honest Personal Awareness

Steven Covey, in his wonderful book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" said "If you want to make small incremental improvement, change your behaviors. If you want quantum leaps then change your paradigms."

Now if you are wondering what a paradigm is, a paradigm is the truth from which you operate. It may not be "the truth" but it is your truth.

The American scientist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn popularized the term paradigm shift. He said "awareness is prerequisite to all acceptable changes of theory."

Kuhn also said a paradigm shift doesn't just happen. It must be driven by agents of change. For example, the Internet was the change agent that triggered a paradigm shift that changed the entire planet.

When it comes to treatment of menopausal symptoms, a paradigm shift is long overdue. The agent of change that could lead to a dramatic paradigm shift about this problem is a concept called Total Load that is all about the honest personal awareness.

"A new paradigm brings the hype and false promises to an end."

True cause for change

You have been living a kind of equation. On one side of the equation is your total burden of stress. This is also known as your personal Total Load (page 8). On the other side is your ability to resist, handle and process this "total load." When the "total load" is more than your ability to handle it then your body and mind will show signs of breaking down.

Unexplained weight gain is one sign. So is fatigue, irritability and mood swings. Inflammation and pain is another. Loss of sex drive is yet another. When a woman gets hot flashes, night sweats and headaches it's a clear and definite sign. Heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, severe depression, arthritis and all other major disease states are also a sign, just more progressed. If you feel like this, it would seem obvious that you want to change.

But how? Finally, the answer is simple: Reducing and reversing your personal total load-the true cause of your symptoms-will restore, rejuvenate and resurrect your metabolism and your health.

Wouldn't it be great if life were that easy? In reality, as bad as you feel, the change you need will still meet stiff resistance from your mind, unless you reach deep within yourself to change the truth from which you operate.

Shifting your paradigm

Understanding and then reversing your personal Total Load is a major paradigm shift that will launch a quantum leap forward in creating the quality of life you will have and deserve.

A common misconception about change:

It takes less effort to become extraordinary, to experience exquisite health and to love and appreciate yourself beyond your wildest imagination than it does to languish in mediocrity or make feeble attempts at a better life.

Never make the mistake of thinking change is difficult. Waking up every morning to a life that needs change is what's difficult. What you're living is much harder than what you can become.

What will determine your success is whether or not you can find it within yourself to consistently act on your own behalf. Knowing the right things to do is easy. Getting yourself to consistently do them is what transforms your life.