Why are we so afraid of change ? Alright, I will point my finger at myself. Why am I so afraid of change? This is a question that seems to keep coming up and slapping me in the face. Ouch. Yes, there are other questions, but it appears that the change thingie is the major one for everybody.
I have a private healing arts practice where I employ the creative arts in empowering people to heal themselves where traditional psychotherapy has, in their past, failed them, often miserably. I have pondered this at great length, not exactly the reasons therapy didn’t work, but how the years of repeated self reflection, self punishment, denial, etc. can often be self perpetuating, thus preventing the reflector from the very change they thought they were choosing to embrace.
My sweet Max used to say in our many discussions on the subject of change, it is the “devil we know” and I would often add, we are “secure in our insecurity…we know just how to make things shitty…but whatever will we do if faced with choosing to do something differently?” We would then nod our heads in agreement and continue our postulations on embracing change as a sacred act.
When Max got the BIG cancer diagnosis we both went into an emotional tailspin. He got really quiet and unusually withdrawn, while I became very vocal, encouraging him to express his feelings and thoughts through the processes I have been years in developing and employing with successful results. He rejected them, mostly. I was sad, to the extreme. Because the techniques were mine? Maybe….No, it was because I knew from experience I could not force him to embrace this new way of dealing with the changes in his life. I admit I was frustrated he appeared to be contradicting the very thing he preached daily and that he knew I had practiced results with others. As for most people, understandably, his fear of Cancer scared the crap out of him. It did me too, but not in the same way.
Fear mostly keeps us from changing, sacred or otherwise, plain and simple. And fear is a bigger monster than silly ole cancer. Yes, I did call it silly. You see most cancers we usually can’t see with the naked eye, which can be majorly freaky, more than the monster in the closet or under your bed… Can’t see him but ya know he’s there lurking… but much worse than all the scary movies you’ve ever seen, even those with the timed CRASH to make you jump out of your seat to reinforce that fear.
“Fighting” cancer by running, wearing a pink ribbon to commemorate breast cancer survivors, cutting out tumors/diseased organs and/or donating to the American cancer society does little in my book to dissolve our fear of the Big C, or to eliminate it for that matter. It may slightly assuage our fear or make us think we are doing “something” about it, but really?….not a lot does it actually do. Think about it. Why are we still fighting cancer, and yet we have been battling other wars and have NOT yet REALLY won ANY of them… Take Afghanistan, drugs, domestic violence, crime…to name a few.
No! To change, transform, transmute the dis-ease of our bodies or our culture, we must begin to make it EASY to change, first with our perception, then with our words and language, ultimately to fully heal, mind, body and spirit…in whichever order we are able, but it must begin on the inside, this change, cure, solution to whatever is ailing us. There really are no winners or losers when it comes to cancer, or any other cultural dis-ease, though that’s not a popular opinion and in most people’s current frame of reference, ludicrous.
Bob Stevens, who teaches Conscious Language, and with whom both Max and I studied, states that when we “Breathe, Touch, Stay, Feel and Love ourselves through life’s challenges we heal instantly. This healing is not solely physical. Most of us run from our feelings. It is that little Dinosaur inside of us who flies from danger, lashing out with claws and gnashing of teeth at what we perceive danger to be. One doesn’t need to be a caveman to know that when a doctor gives a diagnosis of cancer that the first instinct is to run like hell…metaphorically speaking, though some actually do run.
Yes, one might say you can’t see LOVE either, but love doesn’t get reinforced the way fear does. Take a look around you and see just how many people are loving their fear, disease or ex-spouse, and watching their spontaneous, positive, self transformation. These peeps are few and far between, because somehow it seems to be so much easier to growl back (after running) at what frightens us, and when the culture at large reinforces our reptilian fear-inspired reactions, it is little wonder that our love gets tucked under the covers til it seems it might be safer to come out.
Of course some cancerous tumors are visible, but shit, they are just ugly fucking things that with a lotta love, possibly hemp oil applications, ozone treatments, a regular castor oil pack (thank you Edgar Cayce), doses of internal Clarkia tincture and a totally vegan diet, and the nasties will eventually go away. Yes, that sounds like I’m in favor of complementary healing…of course I am, what rational, open-minded person wouldn’t be?! I also know that our culture shuns it, not because it doesn’t work, because so often it does, as it did for me when I was diagnosed with cancer…and no longer have….that’s another story later on down the line.
For now, lets remember the subject of change and fear of it which I was talking about when I began this piece.
When well meaning people invite the FEAR Monster back into the room, people have a choice as to how they will respond. Which brings back the touchy-feelie-staying-breathing-loving thing I mentioned earlier, that Master Stevens encourages us to experience. When we recognize change is imminent, we have some BIG questions to ask and REAL choices to make. The first is “Do I RUN or STAY?” The second is “What am I feeling?” The mighty flame of LOVE can dissolve anything, provided it hasn’t been quenched by doubt.
Such was the case with my sweet Maxie. He was a fabulous actor. To most of those on the outside of our world he was positive and talking the healing game, but inside he was feeding that Fear Monster like the hungry sucker it is wont to be. That didn’t make what my dear Max was doing “wrong”, it just was what he had learned to do and was too deeply engrained in his being for him to love his way through to healing his physical body. Though in his process of completing his days here on our physical plane he was pure, unadulterated, <emLOVEhaving finally embraced the change he had so often recommended we all do. Cancer may have won over his body, but LOVE won his heart, spirit and mind and fear did not.
This piece is about what I am currently learning. Embracing change and making it sacred for me. For the past 16+ months I have been going through the stages of grief, each one a wake-up call to living my life here on this plane of existence. Several times during this period I found myself slapped to my senses, by a situation to which in former days I never before would’ve agreed. I gave people leeway when I would’ve been wiser and directed them to the highway…you get the picture. When Max was here, like a guardian, he would watch out for me. Now he’s gone, at least in the physical and I am awake, fully present, and fine tuning my senses.
I’m breathing, touching, staying, feeling, and loving my path…and most of all, being thankful.
Janet Bernson 