Integrate!

I've recently had discussions with people who were worried that they could never be all of one piece, that choosing a different path meant that they would be permanently severed from their old selves. It's a worry that can keep all of us stuck from time to time. If I change, what will I lose? The answer is to stop thinking that you are your path. You can only walk one path at a time, but you can choose lots of different paths over time, learning and growing and exploring without losing any part of the self. The brain does not have to cut off old connections to make new ones. A new path doesn't make the old path bad or wrong. That's not to say that your new path might not be bumpy, or go through swamps or run into impossibly steep cliffs. One of the more difficult truths about human life is that we often grow strength and flexibility by confronting obstacles. Achievement is wonderful, but failure is a teacher who  often sticks with us until we get the point. The ...

This weekend, I attended a conference in a self-development model that I quite like.  Sitting in the chairs (instead of standing at the mike) gave me a chance to look at what people liked, what they wanted, and what they engaged with at the conference. What I like about this model is that it encourages people to notice diversity: the big picture is a continual reminder that not everyone in the room thinks like you do and that's okay. What I didn't like about this particular experience was the emphasis on sorting everyone out so that they only really had to engage with people who were most likely to think like them. No one was saying: come to this conference and be safe: no growth or change will happen here. And yet, the structure of the presentations allowed people to sort out some of what was true about themselves without asking them to stretch to accommodate other ways of thinking and without asking them to commit to actions that would create movement and growth.  I atte...