Wrapping your mind around change
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CHERRIL DOTY
“If change needed permission from junior high school students, it
would cease to exist.”
-- STEPHEN KING
IN “DREAMCATCHER”
Change. We crave it. We hate it. Stephen King’s junior-high-school
students have nothing on us. Our natural ambivalence about change
often keeps us from being powerful in our own lives.
Change is in the air this warming September morning that starts in
stunning fashion. The sun rises across a hillside covered with goats
and the light dapples the tops of the trees here in the canyon where
myriad birds sing their praises of this day. Coastal fog is
dissipating along the shore. We are passing from summer into autumn.
Some of the changes this brings are already evident. Festival season
is for now a thing of the past and the majority of the tourists have
gone. School busses ply the streets through the day. Nights are
cooling. Morning light comes late; darkness of evening arrives too
soon. These changes are pretty natural things. Others often feel
unnatural or more sweeping.
Change is an odd thing -- while we are often inclined to resist
and dread change, at the same time most of us are saying we want
things to change. Change is going to happen. So why is it that we
spend so much time and energy resisting it? Sometimes we sound like
petulant princes and princesses in regard to the changes around us. I
want ... ; no, no, no, I don’t wanna.
Sometimes simple restlessness and the common human desire for
“more” have us actually seeking change. Then when the cost of that
change is known, we back off. Maybe we want someone else to take care
of things, but not that way? Do we just always want things to be
different than they are? We long for the excitement of change, but
not the price or responsibility. In the very ambivalence there is
uncertainty, a lot of unanswered questions. Yet we humans want
explanations. We want to order events into coherent and predictable
patterns. Change threatens this.
Most fear of change seems to center around our own felt sense of a
loss of control. So here’s another question: What if we accepted our
own ambivalence? And, beyond that, what if the ambivalence was
somehow SAFE? In doing this we control our own fears, if not what
triggers them. After all, the ambivalence only comes from competing
or conflicting desires. There is little to fear in that alone.
Who are you in relation to the change in your life? How does
change affect you or you it? Are you one of those who want change but
you don’t want anything to change to get it? Or are you willing to
move out of your comfort zone and accept the challenges of change.
Again, change is not all BAD. Nor is it all good, either. It is
essential to greet the changes with an openness that says, “Tell me
more.” Hold the conflict inherent in change in abeyance for just a
bit.
Since many of us have a tendency to revert to the magical thinking
of our childhood when faced with our wants and desires anyway, let’s
imagine for a moment that change is in the hands of our own magical
genie. Three wishes? Sure, that sounds great! No problem. But what if
... ? What if it is ... watch out here ... what if it is difficult?
Again you say no problem. REALLY difficult? You get the money, the
mate, the happiness, whatever, but you must confront and slay the
dragon. Uh-oh! The conflicting desire for personal safety just reared
up. “What kind of genie IS this?” your child part might ask.
Now hold the fears at bay and look at the conflicting desires.
What might it take for you to accept the challenge to slay the
dragon? How far would / could you go? Once you have found where your
limits are, then you can choose change ... or not. There is no danger
in change itself. Many times, in order to get what we want (and what
it is that we want that matters the most is an issue for another
time), we must, in fact, change. It is in accepting that whatever
shows up, dragon or otherwise, we will be able to deal with it that
ultimately allows us to open not only to change but the ambivalence
we feel as well.
I admit that I, too, am often ambivalent about change.
Ambivalent’s opposite -- being certain, concrete, settled -- sounds
stodgy and way too comfortable for the adventurer in me. There is
something to be said for the titillation of change, whether it is
scenery or a major life change. It appeals to the “if only” and “what
if” of the imagination.
Jawaharlal Nehru said in “Credo,” “the basic fact of today is the
tremendous pace of change in human life.” Since he made this
statement, the pace has only stepped up. Perhaps it is time to make
friends with change.
(A great little easy read on the subject of change is Spencer
Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese?” If you haven’t read this one, don’t
miss it.)
* CHERRIL DOTY is a creative living coach, writer, artist, and
walker who lives and works in Laguna Beach. Contact her by e-mail at
[email protected] or by phone at (949) 251-3993. Your comments
are appreciated.
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