The Moment of Change

Most people find it difficult to make positive changes in their lives—whether in terms of patterns of behavior, ways of thinking, or ways of acting and reaction. Again and again, we act against our own values and ideals, our own intentions and the promises we make to ourselves and others. We can describe this in terms of lack of resolve or will power, or talk about falling victim to old habits. But none of our talk gets us very far. We still don’t change.

A compelling logic seems to guarantee these failures. I am the one who needs to make the change. But I am also the one who needs to be changed. The ‘I’ who wants to change has to change before it can change, has to become a new ‘I’, because the old ‘I’ is the one ‘I’ want to change. But how can the old ‘I’ become a new ‘I? How can ‘I’ make that happen? We seem to be trapped going round in a circle.

Let’s start fresh. Instead of focusing on ‘me’ as the one that wants to change, let’s focus on time, since change is something that happens within time.

Change happens in this very moment. What can we say about this moment, about what’s ‘going on’ right now? Just this: the moment is not about ‘me’ or ‘I’. The moment is a whole, the whole of what is happenng now. Put differently, everything that’s ‘going on’ is going on together. For change to happen, that whole co-operating reality has to change.

Think of present reality as a system, in which every aspect of experience is integrated with every other aspect. Change happens within that system. We can’t force the change we are looking for if the system doesn’t support it.

Here’s where it get’s interesting. The ‘system’ that constitutes present experience is not a mechanism or device. It is more like a story: a story we inhabit, in the same way a character in a novel inhabits that novel. We are born into a story, we grow up into that story and make it our own, and we live out the story we have taken on. But even though we call that story ‘mine’, we are not the ones in control, any more than the main character of the novel controls the novel. If the story supports change (and sometimes it does), change follows. If the story does not support change, change will not happen. Whether ‘I’ change is not up to me! It depends on the story.

How can we change the story—not just the plot, but the whole world that the story tells us is real, the whole of what ‘going on together’? If I start from the idea that it’s ‘my’ story, I’m committed to it, and we are trapped in the same circle as always. But the story is not just ‘my’ story. Because everything in the story goes on together, the story is subtle, inconsistent, rich, and surprising. We are not the ones in charge.

Now, this is one source of the frustrations and negativities we often feel: the conflict between ‘what’s happening’ and how ‘I’ would like things to be. But suppose we could drop our commitment to ‘I’ and live the story as a whole. For instance, instead of seeing our own frustrations and negativities as reactions to the story, we could see them as part of the story. And the fact that they’re ‘my’ frustrations and negativity—that’s part of the story too.

The wish to change is also part of the story. Living the story means living that wish, ‘enlivening’ it so that it enlivens the whole of what’s happening. That is something we can do, a practice we can take on. We can cherish our own resolve to change, embrace and breathe life into it.

That is the starting point. But because everything is co-operating, going on together, we need to do more. We need to explore the intricacies of what is going on. We need to inquire creatively into the ongoing story we inhabit, seeing how it comes together. We need to discover the story in its widest and deepest dimensions. Beyond ‘my’ wishes and wants, frustrations and disappointments, alive to the whole of what’s going on, we discover the power to change. We do not change because ‘I’ want to, but because the story changes, because everything changes.

Here are some questions that can lead us deeper into the story:

o When we imagine change, we imagine a changed future. Can we also imagine a changed present and a changed past? Can we imagine these three dimensions of time as one?

o One way to change our behavior is to make rules about what we will and will not do. Sometimes that works; mostly it doesn’t. How do we react to self-imposed rules? What does our reaction teach us about the ‘story of me’?

o What are the time and space of our story? Can we change them?

o How do we share the reality of our story with the co-operating world? When I walk, does my world walk with me? When I see, does my seeing transform the seen world? When I meet a friend, or a stranger, what stories do we share? What ‘covenants’ do I make with the world? In the ongoing ‘story of me’, who and what come along for the ride?

o When I enact a gesture of change, what does it do to the story of the whole? What pressures arise to go along, to renew the covenant: what stories, emotions, or other reactions? When my plan to change fails, who or what breathes a sigh of relief?

o What is the relation between memory and story, between memory and intention? Can remembering my intention to change—giving it substance and body within the ongoing story—open a gateway into a new story, a changed world?

o Can I let go of the wish to change as mine? Can I let ‘my’ intention emerge as a guiding force within the story I inhabit? Instead of owning, can I appreciate?

The moment of change does not have to be mine. The moment is the story, and the story is the whole. When we understand this in a heartfelt way, a creative intention, born from a source at once familiar and unknown, moves outward. It transforms the whole, shaping as it goes. From the power of that dynamic comes the power to change.