In an article in the January 2009 Oprah magazine, there was an article by Martha Beck, “Escape Your Rat Race.”  Martha Beck wrote about even when people feel trapped in their cage (whatever that may be) they are still terrified about making a change. 

Have you ever had that feeling?  I have.  Years ago I was in a job that I had come to really dislike.  I was unhappy, suffering migraines every time we had a staff meeting, and found that I had started to distrust my skills and knowledge because I wasn’t in a very supportive environment.  I was seeing a counselor and taking anti-depressants.  I was making good money and had great benefits - I was trapped in a cage and couldn’t leave.  I have friends that will testify that I tried to get up the courage to leave that known job for an unknown reality for 3 years.  So I understood at a deep, personal level what Martha Beck was writing about.

In her article, she talked about a study on addiction conducted in 1981 by psychologist Bruce Alexander and colleagues.  He took two groups of rats - for one he built a 200-square foot rodent paradise (Rat Park) and the second group was housed in traditional cages.  Both groups were offered a choice of plain water or sugar water laced with morphine.  The traditional caged rats became instant addicts.  However the rats in Rat Park avoided the drug-treated water.  Alexander saw many parallels between the junkie rats and human addicts.  Beck draws the parallel between this study and humans dealing with change.

We get trapped not only in jobs and lives, but also in attitudes.  “I have to look successful.”  “I need to be a lawyer to make my dad happy.”  Ideas and attitudes become so deeply entrenched that it becomes hard to see them and they can be more powerful than physical prisons.  We don’t want to see the truth.   

I was terrified of the unknown.  “What ifs” just about choked the life out of me.  It was much easier for my friends to see this than for me to see it.  For three years, I chose the cage.  I couldn’t see anything outside of that cage.  I was afraid to dream or to envision my future.

I think this can and has happened for many people.  How many people do you know who stay in an unhappy marriage.  They have a litany of excuses but the bottom line is they are afraid of taking that leap.

And when you step back and think about it - why are we so afraid to take that leap?  If we never leapt into the unknown, we would never grow and change.  Honestly, some days I think it would be easier to never experience change, but then I look back to those three years.  I don’t want to live that way for the rest of my life.  We need to change and grow and live our lives as fully as possible.  As I have on the bottom of my letterhead…….

Change is inevitable.  Growth is optional.

What is it that we trust as we face change? Do we trust in ourselves, a higher power, a therapist, luck of the draw or the numbers?   All of the above?

I received the following from a friend of mine - I was suppose to forward it to 12 people but don’t get me started on that….  When going through change and transitions it is easy to doubt yourself.  You can find yourself asking, “Have I made the right decision?”, “Is this really what I should be doing?”  Trusting yourself ca be a challenge.  I think this would be a good wish for any of us in transition.

“May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.”

It is easy to relate grief to a sad or tragic event - death of a loved one, loss of a essential paycheck, cutting a beloved program - but grief can and does occur with events that are thought of as positive. 

I went to a baby shower last week and listened to the mom talk about her loss of freedom and independence.  She didn’t use those terms but that was what she was talking about.  Her baby is beautiful, healthy and wanted but the mom still has a period of transition from no baby in the house to one.  She is grieving the loss of that freedom. 

Years ago I left one job and went to another - my dream job.  I wanted this change and was so excited about it I could hardly stand it until I started.  But there was still loss for me and a grieving process as I transitioned.

When organizations make changes, there is loss and grief.  Just as some people don’t want to admit the loss and grief so do organizations.  Organizations are even worse - rarely have I seen one how will acknowledge that there has been a loss.  They spend all their energy taking about the change and forget that there is a transitioning process.  I believe organizations would be healthier if they would allow their employees to acknowledge the loss and grief instead of ignoring it.  It’s like that old saying about ‘not opening that can of worms.’  Seems to me that can of worms is still there and we might as well deal with it instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.

No matter the type of change you are experiencing, grief and loss are part of that transition. 

Most people respond to loss by going through the stages of grief - denial, anger, depression and finally acceptance.  The intensity of these feelings is directly related to the importance of the loss.  It is your perception of the loss not your family or friends or society’s perception.

I was reading this article by Bob Holmes in the Rapid City Journal and found it interesting how he described this process of grief…..

“Immediately after a loss, we are usually not strong enough to let ourselves feel much of anything, so the unconscious defense mechanism of denial steps in to protect us from the emotions we are not yet ready to handle…….  We remain in the denial stage until we become strong enough to allow ourselves to feel.  Not ready yet to feel the emptiness and paralysis of depression, we feel angry instead……  Anger brings us one step closer to depression by allowing us to experience strong emotion, but also keeps depression at bay by projecting our emotions outward toward others rather than turning them inward.  While denial and anger might seem like pure avoidance, they but time and provide energy that we use unconsciously to work out new ways of being and to process the loss.  Depression comes to the fore when we become strong enough to face it.  Allowing ourselves to feel this sadness and emptiness takes courage, but it leads finally to acceptance and moving on.”

I am not a mental health professional and had never heard this explanation of the stages of grief.  It makes sense to me and also offers some comfort.  No matter how hard losses can be during transitions in our life, the process helps to protect us somewhat and allows us time to get stronger. 

OK, I hiked.  I whined.  I hiked some more.  I iced.  I hiked.  I took anti-inflammatories.  I hiked uphill.  I survived and I accomplished my goal.  I hiked the Grand Canyon for 17 miles. I saw some incredibly amazing scenery.  If you have never been to the Grand Canyon, please go.  It is unbelievable. 

I remember the first time I saw it.  I stood on the rim and it felt like I was looking at some movie backdrop.  It is just so overwhelming that my brain couldn’t take it all in.  Even when we hiked it last week and we got down to the Colorado River at the bottom, it still felt overwhelming, but wondrous. 

I hiked with five other people and every person had a different pace.  I couldn’t keep up with the fast hikers.  When I tried, I could do it for awhile and then I would start to get frustrated with them and with myself.  I was much happier with the experience when I could take it at my own pace.

I am not making this up - it made me think about change.  One of the primary principles I have learned is that everybody has their own pace for dealing with change.  Just as in hiking last week, there is a fine line between challenging yourself and understanding your limitations and needs.  There needs to be times when you push yourself - whether it is to try new things and take what you’re doing to the next level.  But just as important is giving yourself time to learn from the experience and take the necessary time to heal and grow.

I was an incredibly challenge for me to hike the Grand Canyon.  I wasn’t sure I could do it.  But because I tried, I feel an incredible sense of accomplishment this week.  And because I finally found my own pace, periodically stopped to look around and try to gain a perspective of the experience, I enjoyed it. 

My professional career has been as a facilitator helping organizations do strategic planning- setting goals for the future.  It is ironic that I am very good at setting goals for myself but at times have trouble fulfilling those goals.  Isn’t there some saying……those that can’t do - teach and those that can’t teach become consultants? 

Anyway, a good friend of mine called up a year ago and asked if I and my husband wanted to hike the Grand Canyon.  As has happened frequently in my life, with little to no information, I said “OK”. Months passed and periodically I would think about this but it never got much past the thinking stage.  Now you need to know that my friend exercises regularly.  My husband exercises regularly.  I think about exercising regularly.  I even buy outfits and shoes to exercise in but still have trouble participating in a regular exercise regiment.  I think it might be because I don’t much like to sweat or that it is so much work. 

Ten and a half months pass and all of a sudden (?!?) I start to get a little concerned about this Grand Canyon hike.  It is something like 7.3 miles down and 9.6 back up.  I start to think - “I need to get some good shoes and new hiking clothes.”  No really I start to get worried about whether or not I can physically do this.  Will my skeleton be the new tourist site alongside  the trail? 

Panic has often been a good motivator for me, so I started to train in ernest.  I whined.  I hiked.  I whined some more.  I iced.  I hiked.  I took anti-inflammitories.  And now I am almost there.  On Thursday, February 19th down we go and then back up on the 20th.  I think I am ready.  I’ll let you know what it was actually like when I get to the top.  My goal - to walk in the beauty of this journey and not to die.

If you don’t hear back from me, check out the new tourist site - opening Spring 2009 - “the missing hiker skeleton” on the Bright Angel Trail!

I had a birthday a couple of weeks ago and decided that turning 52 is not very exciting.  Turning 30 was incredibly exciting - filling me with a sense of incredible potential and power.  Turing 40 was fulfilling - feeling like I had come into my own.  Then the realities of my 40’s hit - caring for aging parents, health issues, changing jobs a couple of time and I got worn down.  Turning 50 was really hard for me.  I couldn’t figure out how to define myself.  I got quite confused and a little depressed.  Was my life over - on the down hill slide?  Was I just transitioning to a new chapter of my life and what did that chapter look like?  It was a trauma for me.

But turning 52 - not so much trauma.  The saying on my calendar that week was……”Accept that once or twice you’ll have to hold your nose, close your eyes, and jump off life’s high board.”  I never did much like jumping off the high board at the Swea City pool when I was growing up.  It usually gave me a headache, but I kept doing it just to prove that I could.  Kinda like getting older, you just keep doing it.  Some days it gives you a headache and some days it seems like quite the accomplishment.

I received this letter from my cousin after his dad (my uncle) who was a farmer died and it made me think about change and how hard it is to try different things and much easier to only do the same old thing………..

“In the parable (Matthew 13) Jesus tells of the different places that seed is sown.  Some ground is not good at all for the establishment of a crop, some of the land is marginal and some of the land is good and fertile.  But the man doesn’t stop sowing according to the ground conditions, like most farmershe plants where he can, knowing that there might be lttle or no cropin some of the places, but if no seed is put down, it is a certainty there will be no crop.  The eternal optimist of the farmer.  And, of course, some places yield nothing but in other places the yield is all a farmer could hope for.”

“Over the years, Dad farmed quite a few different farms with a wide variety of soil types and levels of fertility.  Some places he knew he had a pretty good chance of getting a good yield, like the field north of the grove at home.  Other spots like the north end of the 120 where there was a good chance of the crop drowning out were less likely to do well.  But Dad planted all the fields - the low spots and the hills - the weedy spots, the rocky spots along with the choicest areas.  No seed-no crop.  If it was planted, then there was a chance it would produce.”

I find myself at times only wanting to plant seeds in the choicest areas and if I can’t find the perfect spot, I won’t plant anything.  This parable is good for me to remember.  I came from a long line of farmers who know that you plant many seeds, care for them the best you can and hope for a bountiful harvest.

It’s been too long, but I must admit at this time that I don’t really like change.  I struggle with it.  These last few months have been difficult.  I will talk more about this in subsequent entries.

What I have been reminded of is that we all have wisdom within ourselves.  We just need to be quiet, listen to our inner voice and then trust that voice.  Trust me, it is alot easier to say than to do.  But there is always a first step to take to get us on our way.  My first step was to write this to you today.  I’m back.

This morning at 12:48 spring finally arrived. 

I am so relieved to see the increase in light and the rise in temperatures.  My spirit has risen also.