Hard to Change

What are you finding difficult to change? Pick one change you’re resisting and focus on it as you read this letter. Your mother-in-law’s politics? Your evening snacking habit? The percentage of prospects you convert to clients?

First, establish whether this is something you can change. We cannot control the external world. We can’t change the people in our life, we can’t un-make mistakes, and we can’t alter the weather for our picnic.

What we can indeed change—ironically enough--is to stop trying to change things--either the external world or yourself--to avoid danger and match your ideas of how reality ought to be. After all, we can only change our ideas and thoughts about what is/should be. See below.

Trying to change the external world only makes for stress and exhaustion, like blocking your opponent’s punch or kick in a fight. Contrast this with jujutsu, where the point is to use your opponent's force against him, rather than confronting it with one's own force, thereby inviting injury.

Likewise, pitting yourself against your mother-in-law, your snacking habit, or your prospects takes enormous effort precisely because it creates opposition. This impulse to “other” the outside world and protect/defend yourself against it served you well at some point. However, now that it’s no longer a matter of you surviving “state-of-nature” threats to life or self-esteem, simply notice instead what’s so, accept the way life actually is, and work with it—rather than against it.

“Listening solely to our internal thoughts, emotions, opinions, and judgments is tantamount to identifying with the ego. This keeps us from understanding what’s going on in the real world. It influences our behaviors in odd ways, like drifting in an important meeting, defending against supportive feedback, or presuming alliances that haven’t been established. It narrows and dulls our experience of life. It slows our productivity. It separates us from others and leaves us with no peace of mind.” (This is excerpt is taken from Chapter 15, “Presence: Listening Can Shift Your Greatest Challenge,” in Leadership as Relation:? https://tinyurl.com/4zr7vb6w. Get your copy today!)

Change your Mind

To harness the forces out there—rather than efforting against them--you’ll need to detach from your current thoughts and feelings. Notice I didn’t say anything about getting rid of them. Detaching from mental content is what the athlete practices when she knows her opponent is better; it allows her to perform with abandon. Often, she’ll win, too, despite her lack of skill or experience. Because she was unattached! Detachment is also what allows her fans to commit to be there and cheer her on, regardless of whether she’s favored to win.

One of the best ways to detach from your own thoughts is to repeat a mantra. (Notice the thoughts you have about mantra; and then bring your attention back to the present moment.) A mantra is a carefully selected word or phrase that you repeat—aloud or silently—as a kind of incantation, protecting you from the bind of your own deluding thoughts, and opening you to unprecedented ideas, connections, and new ways to proceed.

Choose a mantra that carries the charge of those who’ve come before, or of the Divine itself, like “Anything’s possible,” or “God is great.” Start by practicing your mantra between mental engagements, like when you complete your morning routine and arrive at your desk but before your start to work, or after dinner conversation but before you start watching television.

Eventually you can practice focusing on the repetition of the mantra while you engage in driving, washing dishes, or exercise. Before long, you’ll practice while in meetings, doing your taxes, attending to an upset child. As you listen to its repetition, you embody the mantra’s truth; you become living proof that “Anything’s possible,” or of “God’s greatness.”

Trust that the universe will point you in the right direction if--rather than repeating those ‘old tapes’ in your mind—you focus on a mantra instead, and let the natural flow work itself through you.

What is the change you chose to focus on at the top of this letter? How did your resistance to it fair through this reading? Would you like to share? Let’s talk:? https://calendly.com/listeningisthekey ?

Sincerely, Martin Kettelhut, PhD

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