Earlier this week I had a dream that goes to the heart of what my blog is all about and what the book I am writing is hoping to communicate that really truly radical change is an evolutionary process of working hard every single day to change my life for the better. In the dream there was a young person who was having a problem in his life so I took out a flip chart and made a drawing and explanation of what the problem was and how to solve it and then told him. When he tried to apply it, he totally failed as if he hadn’t heard a single thing I was saying. I became intensely angered and started yelling what he should do, but still no response.

My dream goes to the heart of the change dynamic. A major change does not suddenly happen with one explanation and then an attempt at an application. This is not to say that the explanation is not important, but it is only the beginning and not the whole process. The big negative emotion in the dream, anger, let me know that there was a part of my self that still needed a lot of work. Anger is the mirror emotion meaning that when you are angry at someone else it really is a sign of having something about yourself that you are having trouble changing. If you already have the quality or process, you can be much more detached and patient.

So then I began the inner work to find what I am so angry about inside for not changing. What I found is that, even though I have made a lot of progress in the issue in the past, I needed to have the quality of being more outgoing with others. Since being friendly and outgoing is a spiritual quality, it means that it is infinite in its actualizations. It means that no matter how much I have worked on it, there will be more ahead.

Why I need to be more out there is clear in the dream, because I am in the role of being a teacher and helper which means that I can’t hold back with people.

Changing always means having the goal of actualizing more of your true self and working with the negative energy inside that presents the issue. So after the dream when I realized that I was so impatient with the change process, I practiced being patient and encouraging in my classes and the effect was amazing especially with the really weak students. I realized that I could set what I initially thought would be too small of a goal for them on the first day and then increase the goal each day thereafter. I began to notice the progress in the students who were having a great deal of fear. Every time they approached the climbing wall and made one more step or made a big effort I let them know.

Then all of sudden, in one class, three boys climbed up to a place where they have to have to ring a bell and then jump down onto landing mats. This was a great deal more than I had expected, but the really interesting thing was that my class arrived early so that sat and watch the boys do their acts of bravery and receive due recognition. Immediately when the new class came in, a young girl, who had not done very much up to that point, came up to me and asked me if I could help her ring the bell. I said, “of course, let’s go for it.” And she not only rang the bell but she worked much harder on all of the tasks for the rest of class. It was a magical moment for her.

The point is that radical change is about staying in your process and working each moment to get better. Pretty simple.