I’m sure, like me, you may well have seen some of those many TV programmes on house or garden makeovers.  Some of them do both.  Whether it’s renovation, restoration, transformation or even rebuilding, they can hold a great fascination, and hold a mirror up to what might be.

There are other makeover programmes as well, of course, namely those that follow families making over their whole lives by moving to the other side of the world.

Sometimes we may feel we need those windows on the lives of others in order to engage with big risks ourselves whatever part of our own lives we want to makeover.

Sometimes, I think, it’s easy to sit back as an armchair critic and say that changing the external setting will not necessarily change the relationships, the way we think and feel etc.

So what comes first in the process of change?

I think it works both ways.  Sometimes there’s an inner stirring that ultimately results in external change.  And sometimes we change the external setting or it is changed for us, and that leads to some deep, inner movement as well.

But whatever process occurs, and whatever form that change or makeover takes, it takes time and courage.  Even when we choose a makeover rather than have it thrust upon us, are we prepared for the inner and external upheaval that is involved?

Piero Ferrucci’s book entitled “What We May Be” (published 1980s) is essentially focussed on the vision and techniques of psychosynthesis, which is a “comprehensive approach to self realisation first formulated by the late Italian psychologist Roberto Assagioli” (taken from the book cover).

But that phrase of “What We May Be” seems very apt to me when thinking about house, garden and life makeovers.

What I am now, and what I may be in future, as well as what I might want to be and do are all intrinsically bound up in a deep inner knowledge and trust of self, and the process of self realisation.

And that takes time.

Just as it takes great time and a great deal of careful thought and attention, despite the manic speed of some makeover programmes, to restore a house, rebuild a garden or transform our external setting.

So what will you be today....next week....next month....next year?

And are you...am I....prepared for the time that will take?  And for what we may be?