“To end suffering, let go of what changes”
~ Gavin De Becker, The Gift of Fear
“When you realize that change depends on relationships, then you can seek a ‘change agent’ much as you do any other important, emotionally charged relationship with a person or community. … [And] when you find the right relationship, anything is possible.”
~ Alan Deutschman, Change or Die
“Fear is excitement without breathing.”
~ Fritz Perls
* * *
Flickr photo: Skydiving Vietnam, Mario and James, by divemasterking2000
5 Comments
I will be spending some time thinking about “change depends on relationships”. While I can see that’s true in the abstract, for me, change has with few exceptions been a one-woman show.
Provocative, Grace! Very provocative! I like provocative!
Jo … and yet I know that the people you help affect you, and the help you’ve received (like from your disability) has positively affected your life.
Tell me more about this, if you’re willing.
Perhaps it’s that the impetus comes from you, so it feels like you’re a one-woman show. But you’re not a hermit, all alone. The interesting thing is that before I read the book Change or Die, I’d’ve been more likely to consider myself more of a one-woman show. But it shifted a paradigm for me, not only about the power of helpful relationships, but the history – my history – of having had and been hugely affected by helpful relationships: The high school art teacher who gave me creative tools that cracked open the Universe. The almost-boyfriend who taught differentiation beautifully by example. My bonus-son, who’s always seemed more mature than I am. The buddies (oh, the buddies!). Something happens there in the relationship, something chemical and irreversible.
I love how thoughtful your comments are, Jo. (I’m having a relationship with you and you’re helping me change for the better.)
Ahhhh . . . thanks!
I *think* what I mean by one-woman show is this: I’ve been in a relationship with someone which has changed me but not them. Where the change in me is in direct opposition to them/their path. Where, as you said, the impetus comes from me.
Best example: My mother who taught me that to have the kind of life I wanted all I needed to know was live 180 degrees in opposition to how she lived.
And yet, you are absolutely right — I’m soooo not in this alone. And I try really really diligently which might make it sound onerous and it’s so not but to learn something from everyone I meet along the path. Always asking: what can this person teach me? What can this experience teach me? What’s the lesson here for me?
Am still not sure I’m being coherent here, still grappling for the *perfect* explanation. Which, may be in itself an oxymoron, LOL!
It occurred to me that I am defining “relationship” too narrowly. Of course it refers to any kind of human interaction, not just the more major ones (parent/child, lovers, spouses, employer/employee). Duh.
The image that’s dancing around in my head is of grains of sand in a stream being tumbled and jumbled about as the water carries them along – each grain independent, but each modifying the other.
So yes, change does happen in relationships!
I can work with that, LOL!
I understand more now. Thanks for saying more, Jo.
And I love the sand metaphor. I see us all smoothing out each other’s rough spots in the process.