A Change Is Gonna Come

By the time you read this, the American presidential inauguration will probably have taken place for a candidate who rode in on slogans of change. My guess is that he probably hadn’t imagined quite how much change we’d all be experiencing by this time – and not all of it feeling too good. But then again, unexpected change is rarely experienced as a joyful event. As creatures of habit, we don’t like it when the walls shake around us and we’re forced to open up to a new way of being. We try desperately to hang on – even to things that aren’t working for us – just to avoid change. Yet, as we grow and change within ourselves, we become totally incompatible with the structures – and often the people – with which we’ve surrounded ourselves.

While we’re feeling the impact of the collapse of so many structures in our collective lives, we’re bound to be experiencing similar breakdowns in our private lives, where relationships, friendships and work environments that no longer bring us joy are beginning to feel totally untenable. Navigating these times is going to take a little faith and a lot of intuition, as we work through our own individual renegotiation of our assets and liabilities, to balance the books on our personal lives.

There’s a sweet illustration of this in a book a friend lent me on the weekend, Petite Anglaise, by an English girl whose blog about her life in Paris became a cause celebre when she lost her job over it (and subsequently won the case). More interestingly, the book covers the impact on her personal life as her social life expanded when the blog became successful, ultimately taking its toll on her relationship. The subtitle tells it all: In Paris, In Love, In Trouble.

Having pursued her childhood dream to live in Paris, had a child – Tadpole – with her French partner, Mr Frog, her life had settled into the deadening routine of metro, boulot, dodo or tube, work, sleep that we all know so well. Her relationship with Mr Frog was as dead as that routine, but still somehow functioning. Then, through her blog, she struck up a conversation with one of her readers, who lit a spark of passion in her otherwise flat-lined life. That’s where the change (otherwise known as trouble) begins. The ensuing story is a real rollercoaster that highlights just how – even when we’re not willing to accept it – change can spread through our lives like wildfire. And just like fire, when it’s done with destruction, there’s an opportunity for new life to arise again.

That’s the bit we usually forget when faced with change. We focus on what we are about to lose, rather than what can rise up in its place – and that it could be even better than what we’re currently holding on to for dear life.
Problem is, none of us are overly keen on a baptism of fire, yet that does seem to be the way life likes to throw change at us. Or, more accurately, that’s how life has to throw change at us when we refuse to read the signposts along the way.

Of course I say this as a card-carrying, world-class, Olympic-standard avoider of change, utterly word-blind when it comes to reading the signs in my own life – although I am getting a little better at that. Let me illustrate.

Let’s see, it took being incapacitated by chronic fatigue so badly that I didn’t even get out of bed for six months (or recover for several years) for me to grasp the concept that the work I was doing (and the workaholic way in which I was doing it) was completely incompatible with who I was at heart, and that it was eating away at my immune system on a daily basis.

Ah yes, and then there’s a relationship that went on for six years when it was probably only good for about six months. We were fabulous friends, but in all honesty, that’s what we should have stayed. Did I leave in the early days when I realised it probably wasn’t going to go the distance? Nah, held on to the bitter end, as it all crumbled slowly and painfully around me.

So, those are some of my qualifications for the How Not To Do It club and there’s plenty more where that came from. Curiously enough, those kinds of experiences are precisely the ones that have given me the greatest growth and wisdom – even if most of it came after the fact. Don’t know about you, but I think I’d rather listen to someone who’d been through the mill, rather than just had a theory about it. Anyway, here we all are, going through the mill together in times of enormous change and my hard-won best advice is pay attention and act early.

This week, really take a look at the structures and patterns in your life and see just how well they’re working for you. If something’s feels stale and lifeless, investigate whether it’s DOA or capable of resuscitation. If there are no signs of life, start looking elsewhere. If you hang on to a dead thing, sooner or later it’s going to stink.

If something’s not working for you, but you can see a better way to handle it, speak up. This is no time to stifle your feelings or your opinions. Maybe the other person or the organisation could do with a new viewpoint. We’re all in this together and it’s a time to look forward, not get tied up in the constraints of the past. You can’t follow your intuition if you’re suppressing what it’s bringing up, so pay real attention to your all your feelings and those uncanny inklings that foretell the winds of change. It feels a whole lot better to be riding the wave than get dumped by it.

If you’ve outgrown something, have the courage to face it head on. Avoidance is not a helpful strategy. Having been the queen of that particular tactic, you have first-hand evidence that it’s not the way to go – and that it makes for a rocky ride. Get with the programme sooner rather than later, as the wisdom gained from taking the long way round does rather tend to come at a hefty price.

Be fabulous – bite the bullet and face things exactly as they are. When you do that, your intuition will kick in and help you find the path that really is right for you. Clarity is your security. When you know what you’re dealing with, you can handle it.