10 Nov Why is it so hard to change?
We get stuck. We want things to be different.
Instead we often feel that change, let alone real fundamental transformation, is out of our control.
If we can let go and learn to trust the organic nature of life we will see the process that clears out the patterns keeping us stuck.
When we enter into a change process we are invited to open and meet the beauty and radiance of our own being. There are definite bumps on the path to getting there. We get lost and confused and disoriented.
Nevertheless, it’s worth the ride.
Here’s some of what I’ve noticed about the change process. Check and see if this correlates with what you know from our own experience.
Wanting to Change: The first step in any change process is actually wanting to change. My personal experience is that I don’t really change until I’m desperate enough. I have to first feel how bad it is. When I begin to get the full body/mind/heart stuck feeling and see how I am doing isn’t working, hasn’t worked, and will never work, well, then that seems to (finally) get me to do something different.
Learning to Trust: Gosh this is hard. We have learned to be like the comic book Road Runner, spinning our wheels as fast as we can to avoid falling. We don’t believe there’s ground under there. We believe, like another comic strip character, that Lucy will pull the football out from under us. We’ll fall flat, disappointed, yet again. Part of the change process is learning to trust, learning that there is ground under us, that we are safe, that we will be taken care of. There is a safe base. We don’t have to do it all by ourselves.
Cast Out of the Tribe: It’s incredibly difficult it to be separate from others, to no longer belong to the tribe, to be outcast. It’s hard to do something different, to be different than others around us. Often we stay stuck because our longing to be a part of the whole is greater than being different. We can be afraid of expulsion from the tribe.
Wrenching Ourselves From the Past: It’s really hard to shift these patterns which are born in the past, frozen in time. Those of you who know the Becoming Safely Embodied Skills are familiar with the idea of “time capsules of experiences” the bundled moments that are unfinished in the past yet flood our present when we’re triggered. Embedded in those time capsules are hopes, dreams, longings that things can be different, that there will be a more positive outcome. We cling to those hopes and fantasies born in our childhood with an iron fist rather than deal with the anguish of mourning and grieving never knowing if we’ll ever get those needs/hopes/dreams met.
Physiological Distress: Maybe at the bottom of it all, the worst part of change, is having to deal with the emotional and physical commotion in our hearts, our minds, and our nervous system. It’s easier to deal with everything else than to breath into the distress, learning along the way to trust that we will move through all that, coming through to a clearer, calmer place.
Receiving the Good: Then of course, having traveled through the muck of life we have to open to the good, open to receive, to literally let our bodies soften and take in what’s good. We’re primed to see the bad, anticipate the disappointment that we often overlook the positive that’s there.
Having been through too many of these compression points of change I know, intimately, the stuckness, the horror, the agony of each phase.
And I also know the relief, the ease that floods through my body, my mind, my heart when I have allowed the burning fires to purify. I can vouch for the pain and I can guarantee the beautification process inherent in that pain. Like every metaphor of transformation, pain, suffering is there.
Keep your eye on where you want to go. The light will shine. Allow it in. Open to the transformation that is possible.