Wednesday, October 1, 2014

The Power of Change and Choice

  
     I  got back to Taos last night. This morning I am adjusting to the altitude and feeling grateful to be back in familiar. Also feeling very grateful for my time in the Mojave and falling in love with a new desert . Change,  change and more change.
     The process of change includes decision points. After gathering new information and insights, you hit a place where you can make a decision that will effect the course of the change you're in. This is a power place. The power lies in stepping up and making a conscious choice.
     Chaos, turmoil and mixed emotions are all part of change. This makes conscious choice more difficult. I've heard many people talk about reaching a decision point and not knowing what's right for them because nothing feels good.
     Yep, that's a given. In a process of deep change some aspect of your foundation gets shaken up or disassembled. The moments when anything feels good are a gift. Most of the time you feel vulnerable, shaky, confused, conflicted, sad, fearful or angry. Virtually no decision you make is going to feel "right" or "good" in the same way a choice made from less upheaval does. This is one of the times when the ability to hold mixed or even conflicting emotions is important.
     I hit one of these decision points a couple weeks ago. It came out of a change process I've been in for more than a year. I was awakened at 3am by a flash of clarity. I saw how entangled I am. I saw how my choices are holding my energy hostage in a way that's not serving me or what I can feel of the bigger picture.
    I got up, made coffee, sat for awhile and made a new choice. Immediately a flood of paradoxical emotions hit me. I felt less conflicted than I have in months. I felt a big expansion as though there's suddenly more space inside me. I also felt some fear around following through with my new choice and inviting the unknown. And I felt some grief. Fortunately I was able to stay connected to my knowing under the emotional turbulence and not default to an either/or.
     When we default to an emotional either/or we tend to choose the stronger feelings and dismiss the rest. For decision points in a change process, the strongest emotions are usually the voices of fear and wounding.
     You're out of your comfort zone and dancing with the unknown. That alone triggers most of us. Those triggers come with their own voices of fear and wounding. Add that to discomfort you're already feeling and you can pretty much guarantee your strongest emotion when making a choice will comes from fear and wounding. Expecting a choice made during a time of deep change to feel wholly "right" or "good" is unrealistic.
  Change is a confluence of destruction and creation. Decision points are the doorway to creation. If you arrive at a decision point and chose not to decide, you're still making a choice. You're choosing, by default, to maintain the status quo.
    The power of change is not that it allows us to make the world or our external circumstances different. The real power of change lies in being able to make ourselves different. Changing and recreating yourself isn't something that just happens. It requires awareness and a conscious decision to step through the creation doorway.
      I've had numerous occasions where I felt I changed or stepped into an opportunity to change in spite of myself. In the moment those experiences felt like I was suddenly being and seeing differently in a way I hadn't consciously chosen. In retrospect I can see that's not how it happened.
     The unknown aspect of change includes not knowing the outcome of a choice or even how significant a choice is. A few times I've made a decision with a vague awareness that something bigger was happening. Usually I just do the best I can based on how I feel, my gut and where I am with my wounding. Often the choices that seem insignificant in the moment spread out like ripples when a stone is dropped in a pond.
     The details of the choice may not matter, but the intention behind it and the context do. Looking back at the times when I seemed to stumble into an opportunity to be different I can see how the choices I made in the preceding months around being open to new opportunities led me to the "suddenly" place.
     The best ally and most important tool I have in the process of change is trust. The first change process I consciously engaged in began when I landed in rehab in my early twenties. At that point I went on blind faith and desperation. I felt anything that could happen if I got different was better than my current experience.
    Three decades later, if I feel like I'm operating on blind faith I've surrendered to my fear. So what do I trust?
    I trust that my soul knows where it's going even if my personality doesn't have clue. My personality can be pretty myopic. I don't want to live confined to that box.
    I trust the bigger picture and my place in it. More times than I can count gifts, openings, people and help have appeared just when I need them...need, not want.
    I trust myself. I trust my commitment to change and grow. I trust the movement of the process I'm in, even if I don't understand it.
    In the midst of deep change this trust is more an awareness than a feeling. This is where "acting as if" comes in. I can feel fear and confusion....and chose to act as if I trust.

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1 comment:

  1. I so love these wise words spoken from experience and awareness! I look forward to your blog posts! :)

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