Let’s play a game. Just relax and be honest about what you feel when you read each of the following words:
Ice cream.
Work.
Family.
Sunday.
Change.
What did you feel when you read the word “change”? Maybe you got excited because change is something you generally enjoy. Maybe your stomach sank because change is something you try to avoid. Whichever best describes you, most of us have a strong reaction to the idea of change.
I’ve been thinking a lot about change lately. I’m in the process of changing careers, changing the state I live in, changing my relationship circles, changing from a rural house to a city apartment, changing from having many possessions to having few.
Over the years, I’ve learned some things that have helped me to process change well. To make it a friend vs. an enemy. Since disruption is an inevitable, even necessary, part of life for all of us, here’s a three-step process for getting the most out of change:
1. GRIEVE WELL
Virtually all change involves an element of loss. This is obvious with hard, unwelcome change, like the passing of a loved one. In my 25 years as a music pastor, I participated in countless funerals. I’ve seen some people desperately avoid, deny, or bury their grief, to their great detriment. I’ve watched others walk through it courageously, acknowledging and embracing their pain, and take the first steps toward healing. But even positive change, like getting your dream job, has an element of grief. It may mean saying goodbye to co-workers you care about or leaving part of your former work that was meaningful or enjoyable. Whatever your circumstance, the first step to processing change is to grieve well.
2. MARK THE MOMENT
When going through significant change, it helps to mark the moment. Find a way to acknowledge the impact of the transition. This is part of the role of a funeral – it’s a ceremony that allows you to recognize an important shift has taken place. But honoring a disruption doesn’t need to be a solemn affair. It can be a celebration, like a wedding, that puts a stamp on a transition with joy. Whatever the change, step two is finding a way to mark the moment.
3. PURSUE THE POSSIBILITIES
Change almost always opens new doors. After grieving well and marking the moment, take some time to reflect. What options are available to you now that weren’t possible before? What new options do you have with your time, energy, or money? What passions can you now chase after? Maybe it’s taking a trip or a starting a new hobby or getting to those long delayed home projects or volunteering or working toward a new career or investing more time in meaningful relationships. This is the flip side of acknowledging the loss brought about by change. It’s allowing yourself to dream and then choosing to pursue the possibilities.
Here are a few examples of how I’ve used this process in my own life:
Santorini, Greece
1. THE EMPTY NEST
When Lisa and I dropped our youngest child off at college, that was a huge change for us. We had become empty nesters. I remember unabashedly weeping over my breakfast in the middle of a restaurant the next day, then feeling sad and lonely for a week. That was me grieving well. We decided to mark the moment by taking a trip to Greece. We celebrated our new season of life by driving four-wheelers around the island of Santorini and snorkeling in the Aegean Sea. When we got home, I pursued the possibilities through diving into some de-cluttering projects around the house and starting to write again.
2. THE BIG MOVE
The view from our new apartment
Recently, we moved from a large, rural house in Arizona where we lived for nine years to a smaller, city apartment in California. In the process we decided to let go of both vehicles and most of our possessions in a massive de-cluttering. On one of my last days in Arizona, I wandered slowly through each room of the house, thinking of what had happened there with our family over the years. I looked at all the items we were leaving behind and let the memories come as they would. It was my time of grieving well. A few days later in California, Lisa and I watched the live estate sale auction at our Arizona house via webcast. We saw our belongings get auctioned off to strangers wandering around our old home. It was our way of marking the moment. Now I’m enjoying the simpler and less stressful life of being in a clutter-free, no maintenance, easy to clean apartment that we love in our new walkable home city. I’m pursuing the possibilities by using my extra time to work on my second novel.
So how about you? What changes are you facing? Rather than dreading or avoiding them, why not try this 3 step process for yourself? Grieve well. Mark the moment. Pursue the possibilities. If you do, you’ll take another huge step toward Becoming Yourself.
Day and night. Work and play. Hot and cold. Love and hate. Sorrow and joy. Sun and rain. Vegetables and cheesecake. It’s a lesson that’s built into nearly every aspect of life. The world we live in is made up of a series of balanced opposites, holding each other in necessary, life-giving tension. It’s a dance, a system of give and take, of harmony, one we fight against at our peril. If any one of these couplets become too one-sided, our life becomes out of balance and bad things are the result.
So what does this have to do with personal development? In order to become the person we want to be, we must balance ACTION and CONTEMPLATION. My philosophy teaching father always says when discussing something important, “define your terms”. So what do I mean by “action” and “contemplation” in regards to personal development?
As you read those definitions, which did you identify with most strongly? We all have a natural leaning one way or the other. I personally gravitate more toward contemplation. I set aside time every morning for reflection, meditation, prayer, and personal growth reading. I enjoy introspection, trying to figure out who I am and how I’m wired. But I struggle with action. I feel deeply for other people’s suffering, but it takes intentionality and effort to step outside of myself to act on those feelings. Both are necessary, but it’s hard to find the balance.
My favorite example is Jesus. Regardless of your beliefs on his divinity, I think there’s a lot we can all learn from how he lived. The first four books of the Bible’s New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) paint an amazing picture of the way Jesus balanced action and contemplation. His ministry was filled with practical actions of healing the sick, teaching those who were searching for direction, training his disciples, challenging corrupt systems, and caring for the poor. At the same time, he regularly spent time away from the crowds to study, reflect, and pray (as a boy in the temple in Luke 2:41-51, forty days in the wilderness in Matthew 4:1-11, after feeding five thousand people in John 6:14-15, etc.).
If it’s ACTION, maybe you need to step out and volunteer for a cause you believe in. Try a school or a food bank or a club or a church. Go alone or grab a friend or a group from work. Use 
One of the amazing things about action and contemplation is that they have a symbiotic relationship where each feeds the other. I learn about myself and find healing through the ACTION of serving others. I’m most effective at serving others from the place of self-knowledge and wholeness gained through CONTEMPLATION. There’s no perfect balance to this. There will be seasons when it’s best to focus on action and others when you need more time in contemplation. That’s normal and okay. This is a lesson to work on for a lifetime.
I was writhing in agony. The burning pain across my abdomen was consuming. After several hours with no relief, I had my wife Lisa take me to the emergency room.
Then a surgeon put everything on hold. He had reviewed some of my results and wanted to talk. He explained that if the issue was my gallbladder, they would expect my pain to be localized in my upper right abdomen and my blood counts to be elevated. But my pain was generalized and my blood work was perfect. That said, there were still some indications that made him believe that my gallbladder was involved somehow, and I was likely to have a similar attack in the future.
He gave me a choice – go home and see what happens or go into surgery that night and have my gallbladder removed. They would really only know the true status of my gallbladder by going in. It was up to me.
It turned out to be a good decision. During surgery, they found I had a gallstone about two-thirds the size of a golfball and that my gallbladder was turning black and dying. It was pretty clear they’d found the source of my problems.
We tend to stop running when we hit a wall. After six months of sending signals that something was wrong, my body finally said, “Enough.” It gave me so much pain that I had no other option than to do a concentrated, thorough search for the source of my problems. Maybe that’s part of the reason my decision to have the surgery was relatively easy. I was tired of running.
This experience has reminded me of the importance of doing the hard work of self development. Of peeling back the layers of my life. Of digging up the roots of my identity. Of thinking through the conflicting motivations that influence my choices and actions. Of weighing who I really am and who I want to become. That kind of concentrated, thorough searching really is the only way to find out certain things about myself. Things I need to know to have a fully realized, fully satisfying life. The life I really want.
And personal development is not just for my benefit. When I work to become a better version of myself, it has a positive ripple effect on those around me and the broader community. As I look at the world today, it seems pretty evident that we are in desperate need of mature people focused on personal growth. When I do the kinds of internal work I talk about here at Becoming Yourself, I become the change I want to see in the world. As Michael Jackson so eloquently encouraged us, I’m starting with the man in the mirror.
So what about you? What “symptoms” are showing up in your life? Are you anxious, fatigued, depressed, fearful, uncertain? What might these signs be trying to tell you? Are you subconsciously attempting to mask them or are you genuinely digging for the root cause through reading, wise counsel, reflection, prayer, meditation? I encourage you to do the work. Search for real answers. Find your underlying issues and deal with them head on. It’s scary at times but also liberating and SO worth it! Your life, and the lives of those around you, will be far better for it. Commit to the long, steady walk of personal development. If you do, you’ll take another giant step toward Becoming Yourself.