Drop the Change Agenda
Closing in on the end of January and I still feel the New Year buzz going strong. Goal setting, self-improvement, visioning, the “what am I going to live into this year?” questions percolate on social media and in coaching circles.
It’s a slippery slope.
Here at the end of January, I’m making a plea: Drop the Change Agenda!
Yeah, I can feel the resistance. I can hear the voice in your head hollering, “if I didn’t want change for myself I would lie on the couch all day!”
Or that dropping the change agenda implies somehow that I think I have arrived. I don’t.
Here’s my beef with change: change can mean there is somewhere “else” I want to get to to feel more whole, alive and aligned. If only I were more able to….. often means, if only I were more like…. Which sounds like a comparison. Sonya Renee Taylor, founder of the movement and author of The Body is Not an Apology talks about comparison as stepping onto a ladder. She says the minute we step on onto the ladder of “better than” or “not enough…” we just entered into a hierarchy. Hierarchy exists in a system of dominance that pits us against each other.
There is a part of me that recoils at the idea of dropping change. I long for change. Deep, systemic change towards a world where all people can be free. And no change means complicit in the system of dominance.
But I like Sonya’s argument, and the invitation to think about what is driving a change agenda. Is it comparison, improvement, getting “better”? In which case, the underlying lack of self acceptance is actually how systems of oppression live inside of us.
Instead of change, can I practice being present and loving with myself? Like, right now. Can I practice radical self love in such a way that lets me enact radical love for my kin and the planet? It’s through believing in my enoughness, as I am right now, that I can shift out of some of my conditioned, harmful patterns and drop the fear that fuels white supremacy in my system.
There is some real tension here. I sit right on the prickly edge of knowing my wholeness right now, exactly as I am, and living into the person I am becoming. Sometimes that “becoming” unfolds gracefully, sometimes it’s a messy struggle of unhelpful efforting. There is always a tug in my system towards the becoming. I always have some kind of mountain expedition goal sitting in my mind. I’m trying to bring more balance towards the enough.
In the coaching industry, ripe with change agendas, what I wish for is for us to ease up on the insatiable hunger for our growth and change. I want a softer, more loving, more liberated approach.
The invitation here is to consciously dig underneath what is driving a longing to change. Is it to become something else? To be clear, I’m not advocating against change when conditions are untenable or unsafe, but I think the drive for change lives out in many of our lives, unexamined, and in less than healthy ways. Instead of leading with a change agenda, maybe reflect on the change that is already unfolding. What is coming through you right now? What do you have access to in yourself that you didn’t have a year ago?
Can you resist the urge to give yourself goals? Instead, here’s a small practice: give yourself 5 minutes of unstructured time a day for the next couple of weeks. Just sit with yourself. Don’t try to get anywhere. Don’t try to figure anything out. Close your eyes and take some breaths if that works for you. Notice the noisy chatter in your mind, let it be there. Notice the resistance. Notice the urge to fill the 5 minutes with something useful. Notice the desire to set a goal.
Then notice what exists in the quieter space below the cacophony of calls to “mend my life!” to quote Mary Oliver. What’s down below the busy list of self improvement and the goals? Ralph De La Rosa suggests that “our deeper nature is simply what’s left when we put down the endless task of trying to be somebody.”
I feel spaciousness as I invite myself to drop the change agenda. I can feel the invitation to check out what feels good, moment to moment, rather than what might feel good if I met a certain goal. I’m rolling into this new year pretty sure my gifts lie down in my deeper nature, well below the change agenda.
Happy New Year dear ones,
With love,
Liz
