Make it New, Now

Copyright 2006 Marshall House

In my view, each day is an opportunity to make life anew. I often help people to create something new when I hear a story repeated again and again.

Even if I am hearing a story for the first time, I can feel the resonance of an oft-repeated saga. I start to yawn as I hear or see the needle move along the groove. Truthfully, whether this is a wonderful story or a not-wonderful story, I can feel or hear or see the pattern. My awareness is heightened when the oft-repeated story recounts a situation the person does not wish to recreate.

Now, let me quickly say that I have experienced some incredibly engaging story tellers who do not bore me with their repeated stories. When the story teller is engaged with the creation of the story and sees it as new, the listener is more easily engaged. The master story teller lives a story as if it is being told for the very first time, created right now in this moment. Sometimes the master story teller plays with the listener or listeners in a magical in-the-moment way. So, there is story telling and there is story telling.

Perhaps it is risky to go on record saying that I am bored by the repetition of a story. Clients who work with me in one-on-one sessions know that I do not encourage their telling disempowering stories. Sometimes they just need to tell it one more time to someone who is able to listen deeply.

When a caring person listens deeply to a disempowering story, the pain can dissipate for the speaker. When I say "listens deeply" I refer to a skill that is rarely practiced. I mean that the listener is truly with the speaker, not sympathizing and not being reminded of another, similar situation. And certainly not giving advice or telling his or her own story! I mean the deep listener listens attentively in as many ways as possible, fully present, fully in the moment.

When the deep listener gets sucked into the drama, listening is no longer happening. The listener now colludes in creating more of the same rather than in helping the person to accept that life is created anew in each moment. The future is created by the present.

Whatever you give your attention to expands. Your focus of attention is your key to happiness. You may forget this dynamic from time to time. That is one of the values of having a listener who cares enough to interrupt a destructive pattern. You argue for limitations when you try to prove how "bad it is" by retelling a disempowering story. It is a pattern worthy of interrupting.

It is the rut-producing story-telling which creates more unwanted situations that inspires me to say: "Stop! Make it new!" Or, "Can you say that in a way you have not said that before?"

Every single moment of your life represents an opportunity for a new beginning. Every in-breath begins life anew; every out-breath releases the past. Every minute you are different from the minute before, with new cells, new energy, new life. Future experiences are not created by past experience, but by your current thoughts and feelings about those experiences.

Transformation Old to New or New to Old

Copyright 2006 Marshall House

I like to think of transformation as a big word for big change. Of course, everything in life is always changing, always transforming. Without change, there is no life. Even if something seems stationary or stuck, it is still moving or evolving. Sometimes you are an instrument of the change, sometimes you are a witness of the change. Change happens in you, around you, through you, and as you.

In my view, the transformation that happens in small increments is far more deep and lasting than the transformation that happens in quantum leaps. Quantum leaps may seem dramatic and powerful, and can certainly get your attention. However, I find that those events that are called "quantum leaps" are either the culmination of a lot of little changes or the beginning step in a series of steps that can facilitate deep and lasting change.

I think sometimes people get confused about what is old and what is new. I know sometimes I do. Here is one view I hold about oldness and newness: I often label something new which is, in truth, very old or original or foundational. For example, the new paradigm of business is the application of what I consider to be old values that have been lost in the maze of competition, greed, pressures, and false beliefs. Allowing spiritual principles to be expressed more openly is new for many groups of persons, yet is an ancient idea.

In putting together this article, I considered a number of dichotomies besides new/old that might convey what I want to say; for example, I considered, familiar/unfamiliar, obsolete/recent, outgoing/incoming, preferred/not-preferred, old (or current) paradigm/new paradigm, and it/not it. I chose new/old because that dichotomy conveys a sense of movement through time. The change from old to new (or new to old) is usually not so much a matter of age, but a matter of movement or transformation. The key is a change in form. Energy moves from one form through or to another (trans ' form ' action).

No matter what dichotomy you might choose, I strongly recommend that you not make one polarity right and other wrong, nor one bad and the other good. Right/wrong and good/bad dichotomies are filled with human judgments that tend to keep you stuck in false beliefs, re-creating dynamics you do not like or prefer. Instead of rejecting either the new or the old, honor each so that its energy (current) can be available for your present experiences. Transformation requires movement.