Everything in my life happens in themes. I have learned over the years to simply step aside and see what themes emerge. Although I’ve received training in a number of therapeutic orientations – including psychodynamic, behavioral, and humanistic – I can’t help but conceptualize what my clients are telling me as themes or threads that run like an undercurrent through their lives. It’s how I roll.
The most current theme present in my life is that of homeostasis. Big snooze, right? But if you can look past the name, homeostasis, (assuming you’re not also getting off (like I am!) on the feel of the word airily flowing across your palate, the idea of homeostasis can be applied anywhere and everywhere that you’re…
Stuck!
So, my boyfriend is going through some major changes in his life right now (FYI, I receive no permission from Boyfriend or family members to use them as examples of dysfunction; they’re all potential “material”). He and I are actually experiencing major synchronicity as we both attempt to find new ways of “being” in new business ventures – and in the world of social media. If it’s even possible for one to be newer to social media than I, he’s been on Twitter for about 2 seconds, compared to the 5 seconds I’ve been on so I, once again, give myself permission to observe and comment.
For those of you who have followed this blog until now, you know that I’ve struggled (and continue to struggle) with how to communicate my identity to my “peeps” Over the past month and through a lot of difficult work on my personal growth in order to free myself up for a new way of doing business, I have come face-to-face with moments of struggle where I catch myself doing business-as-usual and giving in to the gravity-like pull of homeostasis.
Boyfriend has been struggling with a particular form of homeostasis, of which I, too, am guilty:
Business As Competition (BAC), as in ass-BACkwards.
We all want to win. What we’re “winning” I have not a clue. But we want to win nonetheless. We’ve been socialized to think this is a natural way to relate, communicate, run businesses.
Here’s a snippet of this morning’s conversation with Boyfriend after he asked me (ME!) some Twitter advice about whether or not he should “follow” someone who does the same line of work as he does:
ME: You should follow him. He’s in the same industry, and he’ll most likely follow you back cause he has a good follower ratio. (please don’t judge me…)
BOYFRIEND: But he’s my COMPETITION, and he has a similar product, and we’ll be selling to the same market.
ME: So you’ll both be working together to educate the market, and some people will want your product and some people might want his product, but together you’ll be increasing the number of total people interested in the product – and that’s a good thing!
And then it hit me. It’s that thing again. The thing that keeps Boyfriend, me, my clients, my kids, families, friends, businesses, society… STUCK is nothing other than fear of not having enough. There’s not enough money, clients, love, affection, attention, time. Fill in your own blank.
We see the world as a finite vessel with a finite amount of things we want and need. We operate from a place of scarcity instead of abundance. And it’s gonna take a big wrench (or a lot of small wrenches working together) to throw a wrench in the proverbial machine and break free from fear of scarcity and lack.
Henceforth, I will choose to see abundance, and I am going to align myself only with those who also make this choice…
Many of us think of homeostasis as balance, equilibrium, stability, constancy… but I’m referring to the homeostasis of business-as-usual, status-quo, stagnation, paralysis. When my psychologist hat is on, the people I’m working with need me to see their homeostasis, point it out to them, and throw a wrench in it.
In essence, I am a homeostasis wrecker.
But the thing with homeostasis is, even when the old way of doing things is screwing everything up, its pull is so insidious, that a wrench thrown in on anything less than a consistent basis is simply not enough to cause a lasting, real change. We must consistently and constantly call-out that place in ourselves where the fear lives – and make a conscious choice to change… over and over again.
A lasting change comes from work that lasts a lifetime.
And as I go through this process of defining, developing, and refining my online identity, I’m really liking the “Real Me” I’m getting in touch with.
So, I must leave you now to go happily “follow” a bunch of people who do exactly what I do, so that we can strengthen our collective message and throw our wrenches into the world.
Bye for now.
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