Change vs. Transformation

Though it’s been a few years, I can still vividly remember sitting in the CEO’s office just days before leaving my post at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Before we jumped into the meeting agenda that sunny July morning, the CEO asked me again why I was leaving.  I proudly declared, “I am leaving to guide individuals through personal transformation.”  I’m sure my response included some surface comments about helping folks to navigate change, but today I understand there’s a huge difference between change and transformation; it’s the latter that creates sustainable momentum toward getting the life we want.

What I’ve come to value is that the process of change is nothing more than helping people to get closer to their goal by rearranging the content of their life, which should explain why this approach is often short-lived.

If someone decides, for example, she desires to live a healthy lifestyle — there’s a call to do more or less of something.  Doing new activities and creating different rhythms feels uncomfortable and energy depleting, but she does it anyway by shaking up how, what, when and why she eats or cares for her body.  When she accepts this challenge, she makes incremental shifts in the way she thinks, responds and behaves, but invariably pushes up against the internal resistance of navigating change.  Sometimes she doesn’t change the content…and suffers setbacks.  And, the saga of trying to solve problems or achieve her goal through the change process continues to be an uphill battle.

Personal transformation is vastly different and certainly more profound.  Where change is often short-lived, transformation creates the foundation for sustainable change by expanding the context of who you really are: your strengths, passions,and natural tendencies born from love and awareness, not protection.  As result, a pool of vast internal resources becomes available to you in order to achieve whatever you wish to accomplish — whether big or small.   And unlike change, you can’t undo what is birthed through transformation.  Undoing transformation would be akin to a newly formed butterfly ignoring the wings that now adorn her body.
      
So, if you want a healthier lifestyle — more happiness or greater success — you just have to plug into the full capacity of your personal power.  You see, you already have your own internal system of intelligence and genius which comes from an integrated mind, body and spirit.  And yet, many people have cut themselves off from all the aspects of who they are, so they live in their head and rely on willpower to change content.  They are, in essence, living in a cocoon of a fractured self which cuts them off from their full capacity.

However, when you are congruent and whole, your natural systems innately know how to communicate when you’re hungry or full, whether food is depleting or giving you energy, or if your body is asking for more self-care.  Your internal wisdom already knows what makes you happy, puts you in flow and maintains internal equilibrium. This wellspring of knowledge and resources come from the process of transformation, not change.

I understand that not everyone has the courage to embrace a journey of transformation.  People in our society prefers falling into the trap of changing content instead of looking at how their problems are trying to tell them something about who they really are. 

In fact, I am strong believer that if change is conquering you — this obstacle is an invitation to know more about who you really are…because your problems are created by who you are not.  You see, most of your unproductive habits, behavioral diversions and disempowering strategies are born from a place of protection.  You are more than that.  So, real transformation is about getting real with yourself; why am I eating instead of feeling emotions, what am I protecting myself from or avoiding by keeping the weight on, why is work more important that my body, health or peace of mind? 

When you take a journey of transformation, you honor those parts that no longer serve you…and ask them to leave.   You allow those aspects to die, and in return, create a clearing.  In that clearing emerges a deeper sense of self-understanding, more productive thoughts and deeds and a sense that you must honor what’s most important to your authentic self.  From this place of expanded context of who you are and what you are capable of in this lifetime, you start to support a shift in lifestyle from within.  And, change has no choice but to come along for the ride.