The Changing Seasons

I write quite a bit about change. Some write about what they know and others write about what they need to know. I fall into the latter category or more precisely I fall somewhere in the middle and depending on the “what” I am working on, the needle shifts.

I use the communication skills of Motivational Interviewing (MI) with my clients and sometimes with myself. I may have a serious discussion with yours truly about my natural ambivalence towards change; something that the practice of MI tells me is a common human condition. That is of little comfort to me even though I supposedly know this and tell others all about it in order to free themselves from passing judgement on themselves or others.

This brings me to the discussion of the passing seasons. I grew up in Southern California which had few seasonal cues. You could count on hotter days in the summer and when things start to cool down in the desert, the Santa Ana winds whip up bringing more heat and serious wind storms from October through March.  I used to listen to my parents lament about how much they missed the seasons when they moved from New York to California which meant nothing to me.

I learned about seasonal changes from picture books and movies and grade school art projects. Even if it was 80 degrees outside you cut out yellow, orange and red construction paper leaves in the fall and white snowflakes in the winter and pastel tissue paper flowers with pipe cleaner stems, in what I am told was homage to spring. Summer was beach weather and you were out of school which made it different from all the other months.

I wonder if I would be more amenable to change if I had grown up seeing change as a natural part of life; watching things fall off and die back and get covered over by ice and snow and sludge and then the sludge melting away and vibrant green sprouts that turn into new leaves and flowers and then the cycle of life and death starts all over again.

This was just a silly thought believing that seasons would teach me about adaptability, but now that I have moved to the Pacific Northwest and have experienced a full seasonal rotation of my first fall leaves (I gave up trying to rake them all up); my first snow and ice storm (without power for 5 and half days); my first spring of everything turning chartreuse and flowering; and then the hottest summer on record (who knew there was a heat dome in my future)?  ; I am looking at how the changing seasons have softened me. I enjoy having nature take me on her ride through time. How quickly it all comes and goes and she lets me know that change will come and I can be ready for it.

Everything Adds Up

I never liked the phrase, “this is the new normal “ that has become as popular these days as, “unmute.” For me and for those I coach, the emphasis is on “new” and not on “normal.” Whatever any of us thought was normal is now replaced with ;what’s next? “What’s next for my health, my safety, my job, my family, my friends, the world?”

In my organizational coaching practice I am often asked, “What do I do when someone’s opinion of any of these COVID rules differs from mine?” “ What if I don’t want to be outraged or argumentative about anything?” “ I don’t know if I can go back to the office, what should I say to my manager?” or ,“ I can’t do this anymore; I think I need to talk with you about quitting.”

The events of 2020 and now 2021 are cumulative. For some the constraints have been an inconvenience, but for many it has been a constant exercise in adaptability. It is not only COVID that has people on edge but also civil unrest, natural disasters, and a list of other challenges that have continued to pop up like a bad game of whack a mole . These events and uncertainty begin to add up.

If there is a “new normal” , than maybe it is the fact that some things change whether we want them to or not. We may have tried to avoid or minimize change as much a possible in our lives , but now here it is asking us to look more closely at what we fear about change and how might we find a way to embrace it.

Supporting Change

We go to our doctor or health coach or therapist to let them know what goals we have for changing something in our lives. We think we are being honest about what our issues are and what behaviors we want to change. Time passes and our behavior doesn’t change and the frustrated helper we went to for support may say to us that, “we lack motivation,” or “we are non-compliant” or, “we are not ready yet.”

Their observations may be true and yet they may not be. Do we have clarity on what the goal really is? Perhaps there are other reasons why we are stuck and what is on the surface, the goals we stated, is just part of the story. Change is hard and we are naturally ambivalent.

We may wonder what will happen if we do change and what we may have to lose in the process. How hard will the change be or do we have the skills to make it happen? Staying stuck may protect us from going deeper into discovering our hesitancy. Even if we know that the change we envision will be “good for us”, we want to avoid experiencing discomfort and fear. We want to avoid the “what ifs”.  We want to avoid failure.

How then do we uncover our deeper meaning behind our procrastination or lack of motivation? Here are a few questions we might want to explore either on our own or with a helping professional.

·         How important is this change to you on a scale of 1 to 10?

·         Is the stated goal what I really want or need or is it a distraction from something else?

·         How confident do I feel that I have the skills to make the change?

·         Do I need support to change and if yes, who is most likely to support me in a way that I best respond to?

·         What are my values and how does this change support these?

I believe that aligning our values with our stated goals gets us closer to making the changes we say we would like to see.

It's OK to not be OK

My friend asked, “ How are you doing on week 5 of stay-at-home?”

My response, “ Resiliency is highly overrated.”

I’m half-joking and half-serious. Resiliency takes energy which many of us are in short supply of these days. It takes planning to read all of those “ help me please” offers crowding your email box. Some flash “free” in the subject line but when you finally have enough energy to focus and look for something that might help, you discover it was free for a few hours, but that was a few days ago. Now if want to find some peace during these uncertain times it will cost you $25.99

So don’t worry so much if you haven’t watched or read or found that perfect coping strategy. You may just need to stare into space and give yourself permission to be unproductive and have a less than stellar day or two.

All those helpful videos and blog posts and articles will still be out there when you are ready. And if you continue to read here, I’ll have a list of my own for you to look at. You’ll have to wait awhile because I think I’ll take a nap.

Anticipation

Change is hard and waiting to change can be harder still. Sometimes the act of “ longing” can be addictive because it requires little from us to stay stuck and be angst ridden. I say “addictive” because we are use to staying in that angst and although uncomfortable it offers familiarity and some amount of certainty. We know this place of either not having to risk failure or success.

We can wait and we can also ask ourselves “ if not now then when?”