change, getting more in touch with that “youness” is crucial because it's the raw material you bring to any and all circumstances. Among other things, that “youness” is made of four elements: what you love to do, the unique ways of thinking you are excellent at that which you've been doing your whole life, what deeply matters to you, and the environments that bring out the best in you. Together, these create your sense of purpose. How you express these, where you aim them, and how you understand them can and does develop and change over time. But there's some persistent essence, a steady ground note like the beat of your heart. It's why wherever you go, there you are, as Jon Kabat-Zinn famously said.
Take me, for instance. When I knew I had to leave publishing, Dawna, who was one of my authors, invited me to join her consulting company. I had to learn lots of new skills, like leading groups and the principles of an asset focus, which is the underlying basis of the company's work. What I brought with me that was unchanging was my love of reading, writing, talking, and thinking; my combination of analysis and ability to foster the growth of other people; as well as my belief in the ability of people to change; and my tendency to do my best in an environment that offers both time alone and with others. These were the raw materials I had offered authors and staff as an editor and publisher of a self-help publishing company. Now I was simply aiming them in a new direction.
So it is for you, too. You bring with you what you love, your dominant ways of thinking, your values, and the environments that bring out the best in you as you face a change in your life. In the “Expand Your Options” part you'll have a chance to bring these four elements to the surface of your awareness. They are what you can count on no matter what else changes. (See the section “Don't Go into the Wilderness Without Your Compass,” page 133.)
Here's why understanding these four things is so important. Dawna often talks about her grandmother. One time, when life was asking a big change of me and I was despairing of my ability to cope with it, she told me the following story: Her grandmother was a Jew living in a Russian village. Throughout the centuries, every so often, the Cossacks would blow through and destroy all the houses of Jews in the village. All you could do, Grandma said, was to hide until they left, then pick through the rubble searching for the whole bricks and build again. Our loves, talents, values, and preferred environments are the whole bricks from which we rebuild.
III
The Actions of a Change Master
STEP 1
Accept the Change
We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
—Carl Jung
Whenever we're in a situation that's changing, no matter what it is, the most common initial reaction is—you guessed it—denial, followed by anger. Almost immediately many of us respond to unwanted change with a knee-jerk refusal to accept what's happening, or we rail against having to confront it, uttering (verbally or mentally) refrains like:
“It's not my responsibility.”
“I don't have the energy.”
“I don't have the time.”
“I don't want to.”
“This isn't fair.”
“This isn't what I signed up for.”
“I shouldn't have to. It wasn't supposed to be like this.”
Sound familiar? Underneath all those messages is a plaintive cry: I don't know how to adapt and I'm upset that I have to! These thoughts and the emotions underneath are natural, but counterproductive. They trip us up and keep us stuck.
Really, the best first thing we can do rather than stick our heads in the sand is get clear on what is actually happening so we can get down to the business of dealing with it. The acceptance phase is usually the hardest one, since what's happening to us can trigger old wounds and/or require us to go into overdrive in an arena where we'd been happily coasting on autopilot. But it's also the most important one, because if we don't accept the reality of what's happening and deal effectively with our feelings, we simply can't respond in the most productive manner.
That's why this part includes a number of insights to help you gather the facts. You'll learn why, because of how our brains are structured, gathering information is not as simple as it sounds. Then I offer ways to help you avoid spending precious energy on denial, blame, shame, or debilitating fear and give you tools to deal with your difficult feelings. My goal is for you to end this part with a more relaxed, less panicked awareness of the situation and a greater ability to respond to it from a centered and clearminded place. From there, you'll be ready to go into the next phase of brainstorming solutions.
Gather the Facts Like a Newspaper Reporter
Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgment of the facts of a situation. Then deciding what you're going to do about it.
—Kathleen Casey Theisen
I've had a fascinating experience over the past eight years. I've been the thinking partner to several people on the same team at the same time. One effect of this is that I really trust myself when it comes to confidentiality because I don't tell one person what I've heard from another. But another consequence is that I have come to truly see that we're all making up our own reality all the time. One person tells me the meeting was great; another, that it was a disaster. “He's undermining everyone,” says one. “He's doing a great job of supporting people,” says another. Sometimes I want to ask, “Do you even exist on the same planet?” What I've come to understand is that the answer is no. We each exist on our own planet with its own rules, assumptions, and conclusions, most of which we created so long ago that we're not even consciously aware of them. We're not seeing life as it is, but as we conclude it to be.
This can be very dangerous, particularly in times of change, when being in touch with current reality is very important. How can you ride the wave of change if you don't even have an accurate picture of what direction it's coming from or at what speed? That's why, as soon as you become aware of a change you need to respond to, the very first thing you need to do is get the facts. This may seem obvious, but actually it is not as straightforward as it may seem. First, the situation may be very complex, and it may not be clear what the facts are. Exactly what is changing may indeed be hard to determine.
But there's a deeper reason that the fact-finding proposition is so important and challenging. It has to do with how the brain works. To avoid information overload, our brain filters out a great deal of data in any situation and pays attention only to some of it. Then, quicker than you are consciously aware, it takes that data and makes meaning of it. Organizational theorist Chris Argyris calls this process the Ladder of Inference: at the bottom of the ladder is all the observable data; one rung up, the data I select; then stories I add; my assumptions based on my stories; my conclusions; my beliefs based on my conclusions; and actions I take based on my beliefs. The higher up the ladder you are, the more rigid is your thinking—and the more unsafe you are because you are farthest away from the facts.
Interestingly, although Argyris developed this model decades ago, it seems to fit with a theory by Jeff Hawkins, author of On Intelligence, about the structure of the neocortex, the part of our brains that serves as the center of mental function. He believes there are layers—the ones closest to the brain stem
