Wrapping your mind around change

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

coach@cherrildoty.com or by phone at (949) 251-3993. Your comments

are appreciated.