What’s your relationship with change?
How to navigate life changes one small step at a time
“The beauty of change is found in the metamorphosis.
You have to start as a caterpillar before you can become a butterfly.”
Unknown
Most of us are resistant to change and our brains will work hard to try and keep us safely where we are.
Sometimes that’s just fine and we should stay just where we are, sometimes we have no choice and change is thrust upon us, and sometimes it’s in our own best interest to build our cocoon as a caterpillar so we can emerge as the butterfly we were meant to be.
My coaching mentor, Martha Beck, in her book Finding Your Own North Star describes a map of change that she calls The Change Cycle. As a coach, I use this map to help my clients move forward and create their dreams.
The Change Cycle consists of four squares, and we move around squares one to four constantly throughout life. We also move back and forth and may be in more than one square at a time in different areas of our lives.
We can find ourselves in square one after a catalytic event, or something that rocks our world, such as a death, marriage, birth, new job, moving, etc. This death and rebirth square is also a place where all our limiting beliefs show up and we spend a lot of time here creating new thoughts to support the journey ahead.
When you find yourself playing with new ideas, dreaming a lot, being more creative, and planning something new, you’re in square two, the place of dreaming and scheming. There are so many fun tools we can use in this stage of the change cycle. My favourites include future self visualizations, playing with metaphors, and we can even play with analyzing dreams. This is where dreams begin to come to life as you make transitions (i.e., a new career, retirement, relocation, travel, etc.). Square two is where the magic starts to happen.
“Any transition serious enough to alter your definition of self will require not just small adjustments in your way of being and thinking but a full-on metamorphosis.”
Martha Beck
After having lots of fun in the dreaming and scheming stage, eventually you’ll be ready to head into square three, the hero’s saga, where all the trial and error occurs as you try out this new idea or tentatively take small steps in this new direction. There may be things that didn’t turn out like you thought or you will likely (gasp!) make mistakes. Even though you’ve planned well in square two, problems may come up which throw you back into square one and bring some of your limiting beliefs to life. This is all okay and expected. You’re just where you should be.
Finally, your goal is achieved and you will find yourself in square four, the promised land, where you can spend time enjoying your achievement and all the rewards of your efforts. Things slow down a little here and although you may have the occasional problem, it’s easier to handle. Maybe you’ll stay here for a long time, and sometimes another catalytic event occurs and you get thrown once again into square one.
And the cycle continues.
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
Maya Angelou
It’s important to remember that we can be in different squares in each part of our lives, and you can be straddling more than one square at a time. For example, your marriage might be happy and stable (square four), yet you’ve just been downsized in your job (square one). I often have clients who are in squares two and three at the same time as they are creating their dreams and trying new things out.
I invite you to get out your journal and play with the following exercise, based on one of my favourite square two exercises from Finding Your Own North Star called “Whizzing on the Electric Fence”. Martha called it this because obstacles in our mind are like electric fences around our dreams. By chipping away at our limiting beliefs and beginning to disregard these “rules” we’ve created our minds, we can start moving towards our dreams.
Journal Exercise - What are your dream obstacles?
Complete the following sentences and write as much as you want about each one:
If I didn’t care what anyone else thought, I would _____________________________.
If I knew I would be successful, I would _____________________________________.
I have always wanted to (do, be, have) ______________________________________.
If I didn’t worry so much about the future (or money, other people, etc.), I would _____________________________________________________________________.
If I had more confidence, I would ___________________________________________.
If I were free to do whatever I wanted, I would _________________________________.
Now it’s time to have some fun! Here’s your challenge: pick one of the above sentences you filled out and go do it, or at least take a teeny, tiny turtle step towards it.
Let me know how it goes!
Source: Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live by Martha Beck
“On the wings of change we will find our truth.”
Unknown
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I’d love to hear from you so please send any comments or questions to me at sharon@sharonashtonmindfulyoga.com. Feel free to share this email with anyone else who may be interested.
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Are you interested in learning more about life change & mindset coaching from a mind/body perspective? Please email me at sharon@sharonashtonmindfulyoga.com for more information or to schedule a free introductory consultation to see if coaching is right for you. You can also visit my website coaching page.
"I felt at complete ease with Sharon from our first conversation. She has a wonderful, gentle but firm way that made me focus on my thoughts / feelings so I could remove / change to move forward with a completely different feeling to what felt like obstacles. It was great having regular coaching that gently kept me accountable to actioning and moving towards my goals. Sharon has vast experience in so many areas, I felt that makes her an amazing coach.”
— Michelle Carney, East Galway, Ireland
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