Sometimes change is difficult…

okay… who am I kidding?

Change - genuine change - is almost always difficult.

Even when you’re working with powerful tools.

Even when you’re being supported by a masterful guide.

Even when you have access to vast resources.

Of course, great tools, guides, and resources certainly help us to gain insight. They can support us as we experience realizations and awaken; they are important - but I’ve come to understand that they aren’t the biggest or the most important factor when it comes to making significant changes in our habits and behaviours - or how we think and feel - or how effectively we actualize the realizations and awakenings we have in our day-to-day lives.

In dominant North American society, as I’ve come to know it, several dynamics have been baked into the foundations of society that seem purpose built to undermine any momentum towards genuine and thoroughgoing transformation. Just a few of these dynamics are:

Individualism (hyper-responsibility)
The illusion of independence
Exceptionalism

People who connect with me will sometimes ask, “is Trancework really that powerful?”

Yes. It really is…

AND

In our weekly sessions together, we have just one hour to identify, connect with, and shift - issues, patterns of behaviour, and often - fundamental beliefs that are sometimes as old (or older) than you are.

… and for the other 167 hours of your week, you are immersed in your existing relational ecosystem as it currently is - the ecosystem that has sustained the situation as it is for such a long time.

Frankly, when I think about this, I’m still amazed by the depth of what happens in (and as a result of) sessions with people that I work with. At times it seems to me nothing short of miraculous. I’ve seen people leave a session a different person than when they began; and if that was all there was to transformation - then change would be easy.

But, that’s not all there is.

What happens after the session… makes all the difference.

Where do you go after your session?

Change - real change - doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Each of us is intricately woven into the ecosystem of our lives as they are at this moment.

In any ecosystem, anywhere - what you find in that ecosystem - can only be the results of what the combined components of that ecosystem are uniquely balanced to produce.

If that ecosystem is stable, it is extremely unlikely that it will produce something other than what it always has.

So, from the perspective of making significant changes to patterns of thought and behaviour - a component of why Trancework (and any modality) is effective for gaining insight is because for the duration of a session, you are effectively removed from your dominant relational ecosystem - and, assuming you are working with a skilled and wise guide, you are integrated into another ecosystem that is positive and nurturing - for who you truly are.

This kind of ecosystem provides the appropriate conditions for change - positive and beneficial change - to begin.

A person who experiences a significant shift in a session might leave different than they came in; but if they return to the ecosystem that has been sustaining the original issue for so long - and if no substantive changes are made in and to that ecosystem - well then, it’s often the case that the person will very shortly find themselves back in the same situation they were in before their first session.

Transformation doesn’t happen independently of ones relational ecosystem; but often when I enquire into this with people what I uncover is a belief - that so many people carry deeply - to the contrary.

Sometimes a person might believe that if their experience isn’t shifting quickly or significantly enough, it means there must be something wrong with the therapy… or with the guide… or worst of all - that there is something fundamentally wrong, or inadequate ,or broken, or undeserving, or unworthy, that was just born into them.

That the problem is somehow a part of who they are as a human being.

For many of us, we’ve been so conditioned to take personal responsibility - that we go much too far with it.

There are, indeed, many things that are our personal responsibility, and it’s important to be clear about what those areas are; but far too often I see people who have accepted responsibility (and fault, guilt, and shame) for things that really aren’t theirs to take on.

Imbalanced, unjust, and unhealthy practices and policies in work environments. Unaddressed inter-generational trauma, abuse, undeveloped emotional and communication skills in a relationship partner. Substance abuse, materialism, and physical or emotional violence in social circles - just to name a few things that I see that often effect people - and the person’s hyperactive (or at leased unskillful) sense of responsibility is what is holding them in negative and destructive patterns.

When I question a person’s choice to stay in a work environment that is imbalanced, unjust, and unhealthy, or in relationships that are coloured by a partner’s unaddressed past trauma, or abuse, or poor emotional and communication skills, or in social groups that involve (or are even built around) substance abuse, materialism, or violence - the most common response that I get is some variation of “if all the ‘good guys’ leave, then there’s no hope” or “change can only happen from within”.

Now, while there may be a grain of truth to this pervasive idea; in the vast majority of situations I’ve experienced in my lifetime, it’s at best poorly understood, and at worst the basis of destructive delusion.

Whenever I hear this idea floated - and if you say this often to yourself - three useful questions to ask are;

Who are the other “good guys" in this environment (workplace, relationship, family, social group)?
Assuming you are a “good guy” - are you recruiting and collaborating with other “good guys” in a skillful, organized, and intentional way for the purposes of shifting/changing/transforming the overall ecosystem of the environment?
As a result of your (usually years) of effort, forbearance, and suffering in your environment - can you identify any significant positive changes in the overall ecosystem of the environment (workplace, relationship, family, social group)?

Workplaces, relationships, families, and social groups are all ecosystems.

Ecosystems are systems.

Systems - by definition - are organizations of relationships between individuals that are operating in dynamic and efficient ways that produce particular results.

Individuals who are at odds with a system are either subdued and subsumed into the system, or the individual are eliminated by them.

Of course, the results produced by any system may not be at all aligned with the stated intention of the system. In many, many cases - the stated intention of a system ends up being the very opposite of what the system produces.

I might not be a big fan of Christian Churches, but Jesus was right on target when he said, “You will be able to tell them by their fruits.”

My point here is that if you are the only “good guy” in the ecosystem, or if there are other “good guys” in the ecosytem - but you aren’t recruiting and collaborating with them in an organized and intentional way with explicit intention of systemic change - the likelihood of transformation actually manifesting is profoundly unlikely.

Planting one tree in a desert will not transform the desert. Planting 1,000 trees in a desert, each fifty feet apart from the next one - will also not transform the desert. The desert will - in short order - consume the trees.

So, what are the steps to create genuine and lasting change?

Stay tuned and subscribe for Part 2