Some illusions about “change” and the Narcissistic desire for it.
The experience of Change can thrust us into depression, anxiety, confusion and fear and just as easily excite, enliven and transform us. However, how we might manage it depends upon whether we are part of the process or are left with the consequences.
When we have challenging experiences that either suggest or push us towards change they can easily distract us from the centre of things. To manage these experiences it is easy to become detached and apparently objective and assume ‘change’ will solve things.
Even micro managed change, with predictive model based systems, sleek and sophisticated as they are, groan at the prospect of defining and preparing for all eventualities with the minimum inconvenience. This brings up questions about the nature of such controlling intentions. Defending against or preparing for change has its own illusions but change itself has an addictive side.
How many organisations have appointees managing them with the change bug among their credentials? They often demand the fashionable concept of change as proof of effective management, perhaps to re-enforce their insecurities, disguise the past, as habitual avoidance or simply to make up for not knowing what to do next? These change addicts often struggle with change themselves and appoint some other agency they imagine would know best, or hold the key to the answer they are apparently searching for.
Addiction to change can be seen in the behaviour of people with the ‘self is separate’ as a core illusion of a false identity. We can see this when the individual is convinced ‘they’ are the special unique experience they are having. We are in trouble in matters of change when we identify with heightened feelings and these become essential to the recognition of ourselves.
This is a marketing dream come true for all the would-be change agents, protecting their clients against the pain of reality, and the lessons therein, with some onward and upward change pitches. Just think of the potential client dependency on external ‘change’ definitions as a fix and manipulation. In this case change itself becomes a core existential expectation.
The management of predicted oncoming ‘inevitable’ changes promotes the idea that not to change is fixed, frozen or locked up in unthinking history and easily wins over the frail ego in either direction; i.e. we believe we have no choice. From this position we can become readily seduced into redefining our feelings, when we feel bad we might be obliged to call it good or normal and vice versa, even converting pain to an acceptable experience, with the pain of change, or the no gain without pain, self-denying dramas.
The idea that change is a social imperative or expectation, inevitably leads toward anxiety and a narrowing of imagination in the matter of choice and decision-making and appears to promote confusion and division generally amongst people. It certainly obscures resistance to unnecessary or futile change and encourages unthinking compliance through undermining the security of prediction, continuity and emotional involvement. It is all too easy to see how anxious or change addicted management could avoid the consequences of their decisions from this perspective.
Of course change is part of the ebb and flow of life and has its healthy attributes but engaging with the experience as arising from need and not from manipulative design perhaps gives us a clearer understanding of its advantages. Change flowing from this position has the ring of authenticity and accountability. Perhaps the most poignant insights in life come from the unexpected and unprepared for experiences where change as a process guides us into redefinition and understanding outside our normal reach.
Wide awake I fall
How wildly outrageous your singing wind is,
pulling on my sensibilities to investigate those cries,
rattles, shakings, knocking, scraping and banging.
Because of your majesty unrivalled in its brilliance,
I stir from my inward custom.
Tearing the door from my hand you throw me headlong
giggling and jabbering into the freezing snow.
Your screeching in my ears
hides the sobs
of my
awakening.
Jonathan Snell
Jonathan works as an Executive Coach and Mentor. He has been accompanying people for 20 years and has led journeys both internal and external, exploring issues of personal potential, spirit and vision, change and development with individuals and organisations in the private and corporate sectors. Jonathan has studied Psychology, Psychotherapy, the Alexander Technique and Counselling.
His corporate clients include Hewlett Packard, Bovis Lend Lease, Unilever, Innocent Drinks, Arla Foods, Faraday Reinsurance, Rabobank, Royal Mail, Scottish Widows Insurance, Sheraton Hotels, Tetrapak , and Hilton Hotels.
February 2008
If you’re interested in exploring what the above might look like for your working life please do get in touch. Also if you want to share any thoughts on any of the above I’d love to hear from you.
