It’s the start of a fresh new year and a chance to realign your inner landscape to step up to what calls you.
Do you feel a push-pull between the desire for a fresh start in a new direction and the resistance to change?
This happens all the time for change agents because our brains are wired to maintain the status quo. Maintaining our many biological systems such as steady temperature and blood pressure are critical for survival. Our brain and ego instinctively react to anything new as a potential threat.
And, unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, this need to gain inner alignment keeps reappearing as you step up to bigger levels of influence and impact.
If you get curious about your resistance to change rather than judging it, you will uncover several parts of your psyche that each serve a protective function.
Being of two minds about a potential opportunity is a great example of this. Part of you feels exhilarated and part of you feels some fear. If you’re like most of us, you enjoy the exhilaration but judge the fear and may even feel some shame about it.
Once you understand the original purpose for the fear, you can have compassion for that side of yourself. It was developed to keep you from endangering your social and professional connections, because we evolved needing the tribe to survive.
As you appreciate what these subpersonalities are trying to do for you, there’s an opportunity to help them find more productive strategies that support you as a capable adult — rather than the 3-year-old you were when they were formed. Only then can you be free to step up fully to make the difference you are meant to make.
Here’s one example of how I realigned a very stubborn part that I called “The part that doesn’t believe in change.” This part felt like cement to me, although you might experience a part like this as sticky glue or dense fog. As you can imagine, the cement made it very hard to take advantage of new opportunities. Our conversation went something like this:
Part that doesn’t believe in change: It’s all bunk, this change the world stuff. Are you kidding me? Nothing ever changes, it all comes back to be the same. How can you change the world when you can’t even change yourself?
Audrey: Tell me more about that. Can you give me some examples?
Part: Nothing ever gets better. Things that you can’t do now, you’ll never be able to do. It’s impossible to change. Nothing ever changes and don’t try to convince me otherwise. [The cement gets denser.]
Audrey: I appreciate that things look that way to you. I care about your perspective and know that you have always looked out for me. What do you want more than anything?
Part: I want us to be secure and safe from harm. I don’t want us to get fooled into thinking things are different and then falling into danger and getting harmed.
Audrey: Oh! Now I understand. And I see that your strategy is to keep us from naively taking risks that might get us hurt.
[We chat and brainstorm together to devise new strategies that fit my present-day life and suit this part’s talents. I point out several examples of growth and change in my capacity over the years, where fear turned into joy.]
Part: Well gosh, now that you point it out, I do feel tired of being cement all the time. If you really don’t need me to do that for you any more, it sure would be fun to feel that vitality and growth you talk about.
Audrey: Well, lovely! After all we’ve discussed, what role would you like?
[There’s a sudden burst of energy and a visual of luminous spring green color.]
Part: I think I want to be in charge of keeping that vitality flowing and growing, and I can monitor the valve to trim it back if we’re ever in a situation where raw joy might be dangerous.
Audrey: Wonderful! And what name would you like to be called?
Part: Just call me “The Green Rebirth of Life.”
Audrey: Wow – thank you – I will!
The result of this conversation was that the feeling of cement and dread when I faced a certain challenge was completely replaced with curiosity and vitality. I knew deep in my gut that it was possible to have a new outcome to something that had felt impossible my entire life. A limiting belief was gone from my psyche.
Reflecting back on that conversation, the key elements to success were as follows:
- I approached that side of myself with appreciative curiosity rather than irritation or anger
- I learned what its main goal was
- I helped it find a better strategy to get what it really wanted
- I asked it to choose a new name that honored its new role in my psyche
All it takes is persistence, curiosity and compassion to integrate these split-off resistant parts that keep us from moving forward with our life missions. What inner voices are holding you back right now, and what conversations do you need to have with them?
