what are the causes of personal transformation
"What are your thoughts on this statement?" he asked, "We heal, stretch, and grow, proportional to the amount of safety we feel."
Oh I don't know. I thought, That's a good question Jonathan. Jonathan (of https://tidaltransformation.com/), runs the Dragonfly Mastermind that I am a member of.
It's funny. I've never really thought about safety in the context of transformation, but ... I think it belongs. After all, one of my first (and most important) jobs with any new client is establishing and maintaining the safety of our space together.
We discussed it a bit until Jon turned it on its head. "What about this: 'We heal, stretch, and grow, exponentially in relation to the amount of safety we feel.'?"
Well f###, he had to add math. 😬😂
Now my mind won't let go (it's a bit of a junkyard dog and won't let go once it gets its teeth into something). So I've been thinking about this ever since. Here are my initial thoughts:
For transformation to occur we require two things:
FORCE - a force pushing us out of our status quo, and
ACTION - we need to actually take a step outside our status quo. The more steps, the more transformation.
But it's simplistic to think that we change only when the FORCE of change is greater than the FORCE of keeping the status quo. This is because Forces actually come with directions.
Take this little diagram for example:
If Force B is the status quo force, and Force A and C are transformational forces pushing in opposite directions, then NO CHANGE happens. This is true even though the total force of change (5lbs+15lbs) is GREATER than the force of keeping the status quo (10lbs) because force has a direction involved and so once you subtract A from C, then there's only 10lbs of transformational force, which is the same as the status quo force.
Great Paul, but I don't like your high school-level physics chart. Gimme something that applies to my life.
Fine, let's flesh it out for a girl named Angel:
- Force C is the force for her to sing. She just really wants to sing and put herself out there and make music. Hell, she wants to be a professional musician. 🎤👩🎤
- Force B is that status quo force. The judgement of her peers and her fear about being ostracized.
- Force A is her parents saying: "you've got to go get a responsible job that will earn money"
That hits too close to home. 😬😬 Here she is feeling the urge to step into a new version of herself that actually breathes life into song (and you better believe it would - she has the voice of an angel) but she's being held back. If her parents had instead said "follow your passion", then maybe A and C point in the same direction and she's off to the races.
Not that it's her parents fault, or that "follow your passion" is the right advice, I'm just trying to show that the direction of your influences matters.
But there's something else that's incredibly important: COMMUNITY
- COMMUNITY (good): let's say that most of her friends sing and/or are following their passion. All of a sudden that B force shrinks and Angel is probably singing.
- COMMUNITY (bad): Unfortunately, community cuts both ways: Let's say all her friends are dickheads who love nothing more than to judge other people. All of a sudden B is twice as big and even with her parents encouraging her to follow her passion, she aint doing shit.
Paul, you started the story with safety. Where is it? Don't Chekhov's gun us!
Don't worry, I'm much too experienced a writer to do that (often). 😊🤷♂️😁
So, where does safety come in? Well, it certainly plays a part in community. A good community helps you feel safe to belong even as you explore who you are, but I think it probably plays a bigger role. More on that later.
I would love to hear your experiences - what has been at play when you've transformed? Or when you've NOT transformed? is it as simple as FORCE (which is power in a direction) and ACTION? or am I missing something(s)?
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