the path to transformation

Becoming is not an easy task, like a birth, it is messy, painful, feels life threatening and uncertain.  Becoming forces us to step into the unknown, to leave the familiar even if that was not good for us.  How many of us would rather choose to continue living in a dysfunctional dynamic rather than doing something different and risking our belonging, risking our sense of security that the known seems to gift us with.  On the other hand, staying gives us a false feeling of “safety”, it’s what we know, we know the dynamics, we know how the story will play out.  

Becoming, breaking the pattern, is painful, it is scary.  We have no playbook for it.  We might guess what the first reaction from the people in our system will be, but no other chapters have been written before.  Stepping into this unknown is excruciating for some of us and compounded with the fear, is the guilt that goes hand in hand with going against the way “things are done”, the pain of disappointing those we love.  Choosing another way, a way that has never been chosen before is impossible if we are still acting from “our child”.  That child, that is still very much alive in us, will do anything (even get sick) in order to belong to its system, no matter how harmful it really is.  Only by stepping into our adult can we go through the dark path of choosing a different way of doing things, of interacting with our system.  In reality, for the majority, the problem is easier than the solution.  Bert Hellinger said a phrase that was controversial, “Suffering is much easier than change.  In order to be happy one needs to have courage.” 

I have found myself frustrated at repeating dysfunctional dynamics in my life that yet I don’t dare step out of.  Filled with frustration and disappointment for not accepting things and people to be the way they are, I have found myself complaining, “I am 50 years already….” or “I already had cancer…” as if any of these things were rites of passage that would change those around me without requiring for that change to come from within.  Only WE can move to a healthier place, nobody will do it for us.  Dynamics will remain the same unless we change them.  Stepping into our adult means taking the first step, it means giving ourselves what we need and letting go of the thinking that it is going to come from anywhere outside of us.  When we can do that we create healthy boundaries, these are not about pushing people out of our lives (although they may choose to move that way), it only means choosing ourselves, opening new possibilities for more functional patterns to arise.  Choosing ourselves, for some, might be one of the most difficult choices they will ever have to make.  But choosing ourselves is rooted in love, it is rooted in coherence.  That coherence between what we feel, think and do is a feeling we live with every minute of every day of our lives.  It is surprising how difficult it is to allow ourselves coherence, but at some point we come to the realization that it is no longer an option.