Over the last twenty-five years I’ve spent teaching and coaching, I’ve become very interested in the nature of real change. It seems to be such a rare phenomenon; and yet there have been these moments, in myself and others, when something opened, and nothing was quite the same after that. I’ve spent hundreds of hours talking to people about this mysterious process called transformation. How does it happen? What leads up to it? What’s it all about? Shakespeare had a phrase for it: ‘Ripeness is all.’ What brings about that ripeness in us? It seems an important question to ask at this time in our world. I think a lot of us are experiencing a kind of ‘evolutionary pressure’, not just as individuals, but collectively, as a species that needs to transform in some radical ways.

My daughter, who has lived about five lifetimes during the time I’ve known her, has always maintained that real change happens only when we’ve suffered enough. I think there’s a lot of truth in that. The force of our conditioning, its tendency to go around and around in the same closed loops, is immense. Sometimes it seems like intense suffering is the only thing powerful enough to wake us, to force us to look at the cost of living a life where we’ve “fallen asleep at the wheel.” (Adya Shanti) Suffering can be what finally reveals that striving and struggling to achieve our goals do not lead to happiness. Our goal-directed activity usually means we are trying to move on, to get away from what is; that we are not really here where we are.

There’s something else that happens inside us, which I call ‘the evolutionary impulse.’ It’s not about reaching a pre-determined goal. It’s more like a longing to participate fully in life, to contribute to life by being all of who we are. What I’ve noticed, working with both groups and individuals, is that real change and evolution are not something you can control or plan. They happen differently for each person. There are no rules at all!  But there is often a place we stumble into where the old way of being just starts to fall away.  Something inside us knows that we cannot go back, no matter how tempting that option may seem at times.

I talk to a lot of people these days who are carrying this evolutionary longing, who feel great pressure to discover what they really want to do, and how to follow that impulse. I say to them, ‘No-one can tell you what your way is.’ It’s a matter of listening, deep into the heart, into the truest part of yourself, for what is calling you. It’s not so easy to do that-to just ask and listen and wait, without trying to construct an answer. You were never taught how to do that-neither was I. We were taught to find an answer, the faster the better. It takes a lot of courage and willingness to sit with yourself and not know a damn thing. From my experience, this is one of the first things that is necessary for genuine change-the willingness to be uncomfortable, afraid and uncertain. If we’re looking for comfort and security, we’re going to zip ourselves right back up inside our cozy little cocoons and stay there. Another great thing my daughter said to me, years ago is, “When you’re stuck, it hurts, and when you’re really changing it can hurt too. But I’ll take the second kind of pain any day-there’s something beautiful and alive in it.”
If you wait until you feel ready, you’ll wait forever. The fear doesn’t disappear when you wait. It disappears when you are willing to walk through it, again and again.

I worked with a businessman last summer. I asked him what he really wanted and he said he didn’t know. I suggested that he ask his heart. He said he did not know how to do that, so we practiced that kind of inquiry together. He reached a point where he could actually feel the difference between his mind and his heart. That was a great moment for him-full of joy and wonder. He told me that what his heart wanted was to truly show up for the people in his life, in a way that was deeply honest and vulnerable. We spoke about the risks involved in that way of being, and he said, “I don’t care. I know what I want now.”

What I saw in him in that moment is another essential factor in real transformation: I am no longer living my life for the sake of anyone else’s approval. What a radical shift! My identity is no longer tied to external validation. Instead I am living in response to who I am at the core, what truly matters to me. Until that happens, I am more interested in ‘going along and getting along.’ My true voice, my soul impulse, lies hidden, buried. A friend described something to me recently which is a great metaphor for this. He was taking a course in open ocean kayak navigation. One day he had to paddle from one island to another across the open sea, using only his compass. He pulled the hood on his parka up over his head, and tied it down so he couldn’t see any land, any sky. All he had to go by was his tiny compass. It feels a bit like this at first when I give up waiting for the world to give me my sense of direction. All I have is my inner compass, as I float on the vast ocean of life. As my need for security and approval fall away, my inner truth and power reveal themselves. The fire in my belly awakens. I see more and more clearly what happens when I move away from the truth at my core, until the cost of this denial becomes too high for me to sustain.

Our authentic being is full of paradox and mystery. It’s so much bigger, alive and more fluid than anything the mind could imagine. As Walt Whitman said, “Very well then, I contradict myself, I contain multitudes.” We are wise/foolish, tender/fierce, newborn/ancient beings. Children have a natural sense of this. I was tucking a young child into bed a while ago, after a marvelous day, and he said, “I’m really happy and really sad, all at the same time.” And he was laughing about it. When change is really unfolding, something cracks open inside us, and we lose our terrible seriousness. Or rather, things are serious and playful at the same time. We realize that evolution does not happen in a straight line. It’s a messy business-we fall down and get dirty, we weep, we tremble. We see things about ourselves that we have avoided for a very long time. Robert Bly calls this ‘eating your shadow.’ MY friend, Saniel Bonder, who guides people through an evolutionary process called ‘Waking Down,’ has a lot to say about what a wild ride it is. He calls it the ‘Wakedown Shakedown.’ Peter Fenner, who teaches a course called ‘Radiant Mind,’ has this to say:

‘

What I’m hearing, in India and other places, which I think is one of the great things that can happen, is that you can find yourself as though you’re unable to move. You can’t escape from the intensity arising-there’s no possibility for distraction. All you have to work with are your spiritual resources. It’s as if you are glued to the spot, and the work just goes on deepening, like drilling into the earth.”

You can actually allow yourself to be lost, to keep listening without any idea of what you will find.  This raw, tender place of not-knowing, this part of yourself that you usually reject, is one of your most precious resources.The businessman I worked with told me one year later what happened when he followed his inner being, without any idea of where he was going. “At first, “ he said, “It really seemed like I was the one looking for authenticity, for love. My intention was strong and clear-I was going to make it happen. But it didn’t turn out that way at all. I found out that really, it was love that was looking for me.”

What if your deepest love was looking for you, right now?

LOST

Given by an old Native American elder

Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
are not lost. Wherever you are is called ‘Here’
and you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you;
If you leave it you may come back again, saying ‘Here.’
No two trees are the same to raven,
no two branches are the same to wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
you are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
where you are. You must let it find you.

Try this
Ask yourself these questions:

· For what reasons and in what situations do I abandon my authentic self?

· What does it actually cost me to do this?

· When was the last time I truly laughed at myself, with joy and compassion?

Resources and references:

· http://www.adyashanti.org-the work of Adya Shanti
· The kayak story-Brooke Leatherman, owner of the Dancing Bear Inn, Nelson, B.C.
· ‘Leaves of Grass’- the poetry of Walt Whitman
· http://www.sanielandlinda.com- the work of Saniel Bonder
· ‘Iron John, A Book About Men’-Robert Bly
· http://www.radiantmind.net - the work of Peter Fenner

with love
Shayla