Change agents. We see them everywhere: they’re the ones heading the annual food drive; lobbying the school board to get soda machines out of the lunch room; hosting family reunions; making the holiday office party more fun; and actually attending city council meetings. They identify opportunities for change and act on them– instead of just talking about it or waiting for someone else to take the lead. We admire them for their energy and courage, and we may feel a bit uncomfortable in their midst, privately asking ourselves, “Could I do that?” and “Would I want to?”
The business world has known for decades how vital change agents are- without them, they’d soon go out of business. But it isn’t just organizations that benefit. Being a change agent can be the equivalent of winning the personal growth lottery. Making a difference is life-changing when it’s done in a way that feeds and delights you.

Rob Brezsny, author of Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia (a truly wonderful book) says, “Everything I do has to be of service to other people and totally exciting for me.” If you think change is something you should do, or even worse, as a way to push your own agenda, you’re sunk before you’ve even begun. Instead, focus on the thrill of creating momentum behind something you care about (organic school lunches, family game night); strengthening your ability to make things happen (versus being a passive by-stander or victim); encouraging the talents of others; engaging in a process that deepens your knowledge of yourself (many an initiative has become a path to a renewed sense of life purpose or new career); solving problems at the source, rather than constantly addressing emergencies; and improving the quality of your life by living by what you most treasure.

Consider the following tools as pointing out instructions to being a sustainable, joy-fed change agent.

Transcend Yourself

To be the change you want to see in the world first you have to see what is possible. For Rob Brezsny it means “banishing my biases, what I think I know about a given situation, and finding a way to be receptive to delight, surprise, and unexpected information.” Robert E. Quinn, a professor at University of Michigan, tells a powerful story along these lines in his book Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Accomplish Extraordinary Things. A mother tried everything to help her eight-year-old daughter Erin to be a better student–even though Erin fought her. The mother spent hours with her, tried to be cheerful, encouraging, and supportive. The situation continued to worsen until the mother attended a support group and, through examining her motives and beliefs, realized she had been deceiving herself. She secretly wished Erin were more like her older daughter, a natural student and high achiever. “I was outwardly encouraging but inwardly distrusting her. Erin felt that message from me.” When mom became more authentically supportive and loving, Erin responded by becoming a good student. “When we alter our scripts, we, like the acorn, initiate a new pattern of being, a pattern of high potential,” Quinn notes.

Ask yourself these questions and see if any new possibilities open:
Why do I want to create change? How will you benefit? How will others benefit? Try writing a letter to yourself from your future self… what will be different?

Would I work for this change even if it failed or the outcome took a different course? If your outcome is the only acceptable one, that’s usually a sign you’re pushing a particular agenda.
How will the change I imagine support my values? Think of values as shorthand for what you most care about. Freedom, integrity, creativity, justice and kindness are examples.

What are the facts in this situation versus my opinion? Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper. On the left, list your internal conversation about the issue at hand –your private dialogue of complaints, opinions, and objections. On the right side, identify a fact for each left–hand column remark. Look for the simple provable truth. You probably won’t find a fact for all your internal remarks– this reveals where the facts stop and your interpretations take over. Your interpretations are where how you see the situation may be blocking change- like Erin’s mother.

Embrace Not Knowing

Committing to change does not mean you have all the answers. In fact, it requires the willingness to be willing to declare, “I don’t know what to do and I know we need to try something different.” It means being willing to hang out in the unknown, even when you are terrified, to question and listen, instead of jumping into action. The higher the stakes, the more pressure there is to know. Just try saying, “I don’t know” in a meeting when the budget is already blown or when a family member is seriously ill and you’re discussing treatment options. That’s where courage and listening to your heart become precious supports.

Try taking three easy breaths and asking yourself, “What do I need to learn?” and then being willing to listen to what arises in you. Try asking engaging questions of those around you, rather than furnishing quick answers. Good questions empower others to gather information and brainstorm solutions.

Deep Commitments

Change agents are creative souls who make deep commitments the cornerstones of their approach. They recognize, as intuitive and author of Trust Your Vibes, Sonia Choquette does, that “a change agent is someone who is naturally aligned with her spirit and the desire to take any situation and create with it to make it better.” Being creative involves bringing your specific genius to the challenge at hand by making a deep commitment to break free from what isn’t creative, what isn’t bold, what isn’t life affirming (when we aren’t learning, we aren’t living). A deep commitment could be taking the kids for a long weekend because you want to make a deeper commitment to being a parent or it could look like having lunch catered during morning meetings that run long because you want to make a deeper commitment to a healthy workplace.

To find your deep commitment, reflect every night before bed for one week about where or when you were a hypocrite during your day. Ouch, you may ask, why would I do that? Because it will reveal where you are currently short changing the person you want to be. We all prefer to ignore uncomfortable feelings yet it’s precisely those uncomfortable feelings that signal a gorgeous opportunity for accelerated learning. By reflecting on where that squishy, I-don’t-want-look-too-closely feeling showed up during the day, and doing it over a short span of time, you’ll see the pattern of what you most care about. Sonia believes, “We all feel resistance to getting into motion but we forget that resistance as soon as we are on the other side and we embrace the new experience.”

Cultivate Talent

You don’t have to be all things to all people in order to affect change—after all, your goal isn’t to gather glory but to make a difference for the good of all concerned. Think of this as a magnificent opportunity to encourage the talents of others. You may be the one who sees what’s not working yet someone else might be better equipped to shift the situation. We all love to be recognized for our gifts. We adore when someone says, “I’ve watched you with the girls on the team and the way you were able to help improve without making them feel bad was amazing. I wondered if you might help me with a similar situation I’m facing at the senior center?”

Look around- people who can help make your dreams a reality surround you. Become an observer, a talent spy. When you see a talent that would help your cause, be specific about the gift you recognize in him or her, and what you are asking for. Skip this tool entirely if you can’t be authentic– false flattery is toxic and hard on everyone’s souls.

21st Century Transformation

Science and spirituality tell us we are all connected and the daily news certainly makes it clear the myriad ways that connection can unfold, so perhaps being a change agent is posed to become one of our most transformative 21st century spiritual practices. Instead of retreating to meditate in a cave, we’ll learn to “become more consciousness, more loving, more alert, more gifting,” as spiritual guide and author of The Translucent Revolution Arjuna Ardagh says, in community. We will evolve and transcend through making life better. Change agenting has all the hallmarks of an authentic spiritual path: focus on transcending the self; serving the larger whole; learning to be comfortable in the unknown; committing to what you most care about; nurturing your precious energy; and cultivating the brilliance of those who surround you.

Who knows what might happen if we all embraced change- mass enlightenment?

Jennifer Louden is a best-selling author of five books, including her classic, The Woman’s Comfort Book, and her newest, Comfort Secrets for Busy Women. She’s also a creativity and life coach, creator of the Inner Organizer, and a columnist for Body Soul Magazine. She leads retreats on self-care and creativity around the country. Hear her live on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius Channel 112 every Sunday at 8 am Pacific, 11 am Eastern. Visit her world at: comfortqueen.com comfortqueen.com and jenniferlouden.com jenniferlouden.com

Image by stilllearninghowtofly - W W Tribe Psychiatrist via Flickr

Why someone reaches success and someone else doesn’t? Learn the 6 steps successful people take to get started the right way in their road to success without fail.

1) Wanting Success Is At The Start Of Your Road To Success

Even if you want success, you could not be able to walk towards it. Success requires a road you can walk in, and this road have to be built by you and none else. Furthermore, building your road is not enough: you have also to be willing of going into it. Willing will be you major force towards your success.

How are you going to willing badly? Put your goal inside a bigger one, and the latter inside an ever bigger one. Thing big and see how each of these goals is going to support the bigger ones.

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Voice Dialogue (VD) is an excellent way of getting to know your inner selves directly by talking to them. In addition to this, the developers of VD, Hal and Sidra Stone (1993), believe that it is an extremely effective method for exploring and eventually coming to grips with the different inner selves. As with any approach to personal growth, VD is not necessarily appropriate for everyone and must be seen in the context of all the psycho spiritual work that you do. VD is a way of working that can be integrated into any growth-enhancing or therapeutic system. It is not designed to replace anything but rather to add richness to whatever it is that you are now doing.

THE BASIC COMPONENTS OF VOICE DIALOGUE

An exploration of our subpersonalities:

VD offers an opportunity to separate the subpersonalities from the total personality and deal with them as independent, interacting psychic units or energy systems. In using VD, we directly engage these subpersonalities or voices in a dialogue without the interference of a critical, embarrassed, or repressive protector/controller.

The role of the Ego:

VD definitely separates the ego from the protector/controller and the primary subpersonalities that work alongside it. The ego occupies a central physical space, and the subpersonalities play out their conflicts around it. When different subpersonalities take over, the facilitator will point out this takeover and ask the subject to move to another space, and engage the subpersonality directly. In this way the ego becomes more and more clearly differentiated; that is to say, it becomes a more aware ego.

Enhancement of awareness:

VD introduces awareness into our psychological make-up. Physical spaces exist for each subpersonality, for the ego who coordinates and executes, and, separate from all the others, for our awareness.

GUIDELINES FOR THE USE OF VOICE DIALOGUE

Identification of subpersonalities: Creating a psychic map

The first step in facilitating VD is the identification of the subpersonalities. The facilitator encourages the subject to talk about life in general or about a specific experience that seems important. The conversation between them serves several functions: it establishes or enhances rapport, it conveys information, and most importantly for the VD process, it gives the facilitator the opportunity to create a ‘psychic map’ of the territory.

Physically separating subpersonalities

When the facilitator (with the consent of the subject) talks to a specific subpersonality, the subject should move to a different space in the room, which means changing chairs.

Facilitating the subpersonalities

From this point on, the facilitator simply talks to the subpersonality as he or she would be a real person. The facilitator can be empathetic and non-judgemental, asking questions when appropriate, or simply listening.

A basic principle of VD work is: whatever progress is made is acceptable – specific problems do not need to be resolved in a single session. The aware ego is responsible for any problem solving.

Separating the subpersonalities from the aware ego

In order to separate a subpersonality from the aware ego, encourage each voice to speak of the subject as a separate entity. After the session, we return to the aware ego in its particular position, and the facilitator and subject discuss the session in whatever fashion they choose.

Further important details

Remaining non-judgemental: It is important to remain non-judgemental. The voices are like people: If the facilitator is truly open and interested, they will blossom.

Relax and take your time: Subpersonalities, as said before, are like people: They like to feel that they have your undivided attention as well as plenty of time to express themselves. A facilitator may have to sit in silence for quite some time before a vulnerable child will even speak. Often, the voice that takes forty minutes to be fully uncovered is a most important part of the personality.

Observing changes in energy patterns: Each subpersonality is a distinct energy pattern – each has a distinct facial expression, posture, and tone of voice.

Voice dialogue as an altered state of consciousness: The aware ego and the protector/controller, who usually dominate consciousness, are set aside temporarily as other energy patterns are given the opportunity to speak. With this in mind, the facilitator will automatically be careful when dealing with a voice. Because of that, the way the session ends is critical. It is important to return the subject to an ordinary state of consciousness.

Voice dialogue is not a substitute for personal reactions: VD should only be carried out in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect.

Nathalie Himmelrich is the founder of ‘Reach for the Sky Therapy’ ( reachforthesky.com.au www.reachforthesky.com.au) on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and specialises in ‘relationship related issues’. She is working with individuals and couples using techniques ranging from Counselling, Neuro Linguistic Programming to Journey Therapy. She supports clients in their personal growth in a supportive and professional environment.

Can you imagine living without fear? What if you woke up each day eager to take on new challenges? Would that be the kind of life you would want?

I saw this and more modeled in the life of Amber–a legacy of joy and contentment.

While attending the Leadership Management Institute’s annual convention, our beloved pug of a decade and a half peacefully laid down her head for the last time. Although quite old, she was never sick. In fact, everyday she acted like a puppy: happy and excited by all aspects of life.

She modeled a life that perhaps we should all consider:

Absolutely Know No Fear Amber quickly learned the ropes of life, avoiding the paper swats afforded to the hard-headed. She had no fear of anything or anyone. Thus, she eagerly met new people and sought different experiences. Admittedly, thunderstorms were not her favorite event, but as she aged and her hearing diminished, even an occasional thunder-boomer didn’t bother her.

Excitedly Greet Each Day She always greeted each day with boundless energy. She got excited about the little things in life. Amber would dance around and wag her curly tail straight over something as mundane as breakfast. Even in the last months, she never lost her excitement (or appetite!). Even cataracts could not dim the sparkle in Amber’s eyes.

Steadfastly Ignore Intimidation About a year ago we brought home a Boston Terrier pup. Jesse was a bit obnoxious for Amber, but she didn’t let that bother her. Instead, she would ignore him as much as possible, but when necessary, she would chase Jesse and give him a good run. Even at an advanced age, she managed to nip him a time or two. If she really wanted to let him know he couldn’t intimidate her, she would simply lay next to his favorite toy with one paw on top of it. Of course, this drove Jesse wild and he would run around and bark while Amber maintained her cool. I swear she smiled every time the Boston made another circle.

Amber lived the equivalent of 100 years. On her last day she was with a friend who cares for small children. Amber gladly allowed the kids to pet her while she scarfed up the crumbs from their cookies. Then, as per her usual routine, she trundled off to the laundry room for a long nap. This time, however, she didn’t wake up.

Amber lived a fearless life to the very end, each day full of wonder, excitement, and joy. She never let anyone or anything intimidate her. Could any of us ask for anything more?

achievefocus.com/blog1/ achievefocus.com/blog/ A bit of background…I enjoy facilitating the learning process, encouraging the development of untapped potential within individuals and client organizations. Also, I encourage people to understand how proper etiquette is essential today, especially in communications.