It is a well know axiom that people do not like to change. Yet change is an integral part of living. We start off as babies and grow into adults. We learn skills, change jobs, grow old and die. Change is inexorable: we can embrace it, or shut our eyes to reality and reject it. I suppose that the ways we respond to change largely results from the ways that our parents did. If they adapted well to new situations, your are likely to do so too.
If you have difficulty with change, and you want to be able to face it with pleasure, rather than fear, then I have a suggestion for you. The first step to effective change is to be fully aware of what the real situation is and understand how your early days influence how you respond to the world today. Here is one way of working this out.
Imagine yourself at one end of a see-saw, and one of your parents at the other. If you are going to keep the see-saw in balance, you both have to adjust your position on the plank, according to who is heavier. The bigger the difference between your weights, the more you will both have to adjust your positions. The lighter person will have to move outwards, and the heavier will have to move in towards the pivot.
Now think about the way you would have had to adjust to this parent when your were a child. Picture your relationship with this parent when you were a teenager… Twelve… eight… five… Did you have to do all the adjusting, or did your parent adapt to you and the changes in you as you grew and developed, both physically and mentally? Did your parent try to keep you the same all the way through? Or force you to move inwards as you grew?
Think of other people you know and have known. How do you keep the balance with them? Do you balance the plank parallel to the ground, or do you bounce up and down? If you bounce up and down, do you feel strong in one position and weak in the other? If so, are you weak when you are at the top, or the bottom? How do you think the other person feels?
You do not only maintain balance with other people. You also need to keep balance within yourself. So imagine yourself on the see-saw. How do you balance tiredness and activity… wallflower and life and soul of the party… control and submission… control and rebellion… submission and rebellion… risk and safety?
To maintain your balance, do you leap from one end of the plank to the other, making it swing violently, or do you run, or walk slowly, or do you stand in the middle and watch the ends as you work them up and down? How do you feel when you are doing your thing?
Now I should like you to think about how you relate to your family. Should you have been in care, or otherwise separated from your family, think of the grouping that you regard as the closest thing to a family, then include your other group experiences.
If you put them all on the see-saw, are you at one end, or is part of the family with you? Is someone else alone at the other end? How do you all keep the balance? Does your family split into sub-groups, each with its own see-saw? Have you formed your own family, and if so, do you see it on a separate see-saw? How do they react to newcomers? What would happen in any of these groupings if someone just decided to get off?
Now I should like you to imagine that the pivot is no longer fixed. Instead, the see-saw has a drum in the centre, which can roll smoothly over the ground. You and your family now have a larger set of options for accommodating change. You can pretend that the pivot is fixed, and continue to move towards or away from each other, which is likely to result in escalation. Or you can move the pivot to a new place, which would be accommodation. Once you can move in this way, there are lots more possibilities for maintaining balance.
If you decide to change some of the ways you relate to people, you will probably find that a few people will accept the new you, and more will have difficulty and be inclined to escalate. Of course, it will depend on what it is you are changing. Probably everyone can accommodate a certain amount of change, but once you go beyond a certain point, they will start digging in their heels.
I think that being aware of what is likely to happen if you do change makes it much easier to deal with the results. You also need to understand that, however much you wish to get those around you to change, they will not. This is the down side of change: the only person you can change are you. Here is the upside: when you change, everyone around you has to change too. They have no choice. Here is another downside: you can not control the ways they change. They will escalate to try to get you back to where you were before, or they will accommodate your new behavior or attitude. What you can control is how you respond to other people’s changed behavior. Elizabeth Hendry helps people, whether individuals or business owners and their staff to get rid of the coping strategies that they have brought with them from childhood, and that are stopping them from making their lives and businesses successful: by their definition. Her book, Choose a Good Feeling Instead, is available to buy on the web.
She will be publishing a 6 week self development programme on the net, which will enable anyone who is willing to do the work to change in a balanced and effective way, without the expense of a therapist. At the same time, she works with businesses and individuals to identify the blocks and brakes that they put on themselves in their lives and businesses, and to let them go. As always, she offers a full money back guarantee of complete satisfaction.
Article Source: How to Face Change With Balance
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