Change Ahead.

I have been doing a 21-day meditation with my good friends Oprah and Deepak. They sure are nice. We have coffee and chat and then meditate. They have lots of good advice too. I love friends like that.

Anywho...

...one of the afternoons I spent with O and D, they said some things I thought I would share with you
---about change.

Change is hard. We all hate change. In fact, I just auditioned for a TV show where my character said the exact same thing. (It's following me!) CHANGE SUCKS. We think keeping things the same is easier. 

Well Deepak says "There is wisdom in change." Yes I know. Blah blah blah. Wisdome-schmisdom! Change still sucks, kim. But he's right. We learn in change, right? We learn more of what we want, what we don't want, who we are. Etcetera etcetera etcetera.

It's in change that we begin to more closely align our lives to what we want. It's like a "get out of jail free" card. Scary but true. 

So seek out the new and fresh. See how it feels. Try something unknown. There is nothing terrible in the unknown. It's just unknown. It could be wonderful. How do you know? So no need to be afraid.Improv teaches us to SAY YES. Foundational improv tool: SAY YES. It's how things move forward. It's how things happen. So I'm a firm believer and coach in always saying yes. I try to also live by that philosophy as much as possible. 

YES!

Well my buddy Deepak likes the idea too. But he says it a little differently. He suggests us to "say yes more than you say no." Love that Deepy! It's even easier for those of us more fearful. You don't have to say yes all the time, just say yes more than you say no. Today. 

And then tomorrow.

And then the next day and see how your life changes. 

You have a little courage today so you can have more tomorrow.

ALL of this leads to a more dynamic life. And isn't that what we all want?

A more dynamic life.

Hang on, Oprah's at the door. I gotta get this...

YES!

Willingness to Change

Change is hard. Period.

No one will deny that. 

Also listening can be hard. Period. (That's a lot of periods. Why so many Kim? My shoes feel tight today...) We are so full of our own thoughts and ideas that it's sometimes hard to separate out the static.

Improv geniuses TJ and Dave (TJ Jagodowski and Dave Pasquesi) said (one or both of them at any rate): "Listening is the willingness to change". I think that's rather profound.

Listening is the willingness to change. Hm. So. In order to truly listen, we must be willing to change. To be changed. Dang it. That's hard. We don't necessarily want to be changed. We are often comfortable where we are. I don't know about you, but sometimes to me, change seems unnecessary and like an awful lot of work. Right? Can't I just listen and stay exactly where I am, in my comfortable-I know-things-and don't-want-to-think-place?

But think about the last really great conversation you had. We are changed. We are different after time and conversation with a good friend. And even in the brief interactions of our day, if we truly listen we are changed.

This plays out on stage quite dynamically with good improvisors. Actor A says something. Actor B can ignore, sort of accept it or listen deeply and actually let it be a gift -- a mind-blowing, life-changing gift. If Actor B chooses the latter, the scene moves, flies, entertains. It looks scripted. It's fun. If Actor B ignores or only partially listens/accepts, that actor has to work really hard to create, to think, to salvage the scene. Would have just been easier to listen and be moved. Would actually be easier to just be changed.

In your next opportunity, see how willing you are to change--- i.e. listen. And then see what happens.

pushing pause.

The weather has been crazy in the Midwest. Super cold and then mild and then super cold again. Difficult to figure out how to dress every day! Difficult to weather the change.

My 95 year old grandpa just died. We were very close. We talked 2 or 3 times a week. I visited him from across country 4 or 5 times a year. We were very close. I miss him. It is a difficult change to weather.

Life, of course, like the weather, always changes. Nothing stays the same. Ever. No matter how hard we cling to the current, it is beyond our grasp, and becomes the past. It flies away in the winter wind.

Improv teaches us to let go of the past, to live in this moment, to say yes to what is given us here and now—bitter winds or bitter loss, staggering failure or triumphant success. But sometimes I want to linger a bit, slow down time, live in the past, remember what was. This is one of those moments. I am not ready for this change quite yet. I will be soon, but not quite yet. So I sit. And as the wind howls outside, I wait for the sun to shine once again, for the weather to change, to weather this change.