In recent posts, here and here, I’ve been sharing about some of the powerful life skills and lessons I’ve been gleaning from impro story-telling. Impro is a form of theatre where the story is made up by the team of actors as they act it out. Nobody knows where the story will go, because they’re creating it together on the spot, often in collaboration with the audience. The context of uncertainty that’s created within the impro games and story-telling sessions is in many ways similar to the fast-paced, high-change, unpredictable environments that many of us are living and working in these days, so I’ve found a lot of the impro perspectives and skills are highly relevant to thriving in this era – particularly the perspectives on embracing, rather than resisting, uncertainty and change.
Why we resist change
You’ve probably realized this yourself: on a deep level, we guard ourselves against change. From a survival point of view, our bodies are designed to avoid change and keep returning to homeostasis. And there’s a good reason for this – the body can only tolerate a small amount of change at a time, and when it comes to integral systems such as blood pressure and body temperature, the body can tolerate very little variance. So the body instinctively resists change, in order to survive. And when we’re living our lives automatically, rather than consciously, the mind becomes a servant to the body, and we’ll find ourselves fearing and resisting change in all areas of our lives. But, while the body is concerned with survival, and avoiding change will probably ensure your survival (until you die at least… it’s gonna happen in the end), our hearts, minds and spirits need change and growth in order to thrive. One of the impro mantras that we learned in the impro workshop really affirmed this idea for me:
“When you’re changing, you’re interesting…”
When you’re changing, you’re interesting
As with all entertainment, impro is interesting and entertaining when there’s something happening, and since you rarely have props on the stage, the interest and entertainment is all in the individual actors, their characters and how they relate to each other. Think of your favorite movies or books – one of the things that makes the main characters interesting is that they are in some way changed by the events or interactions in the story.
For me, this is so true in life. On some level, we’re all perceiving a story in each other, and we’re all putting out stories about ourselves. And the reason why some people attract more attention and interest (and fame/ money, etc) is that they’re putting out interesting stories – stories in which they’re changing. It’s the reason why people like Madonna have remained interesting over the years. She’s reinvented herself regularly, because she knows that she has to keep changing if she wants to remain interesting to her audience. And it’s the reason why actors like Hugh Grant have faded into the distance – he hasn’t changed and so he’s no longer interesting and we’ve moved on. I think this is a powerful idea to consider when it comes to relationships and leadership. If you want to be successful at relationships and leadership, you’re going to need to be committed to your life-long learning, change and growth.
What about the times when people reject us when we change?
I know that some people will say that they think that relationships can be shaken up and damaged by change, and I think this confirms the idea that, “When you’re changing, you’re interesting.” Often the reason the relationship ends is because one person was changing and the other person wasn’t, so somebody outgrew the relationship. I’ve seen this in my relationship with Andy. We got married when I was twenty and there were people who said that I was too young, that I wasn’t old enough to have “found myself” yet, and that we were taking a risk because we could still both change a lot and outgrow each other. While a lot of people see marriage as a limiting institution, when we got married, our vows were pretty much that we were committing ourselves to helping each other be more, and to live and expand our potential. And that’s what we’ve done. Andy is not the man I married, and I’m not the woman he married. And thank God for that! We’ve both been continuously changing, and that’s one of the things that’s kept us interesting to each other over the past 11 years we’ve been together.
So, I’m interested… how have you experienced the impact of change on your relationships? How has changing made your relationships (and your life) more interesting?
Photo by Wok
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Cath
Very interesting post, I enjoyed very much.
It triggered several thoughts about change for me.
Seems to me that it happens on several different layers. As you say our bodies are designed to resist change – to heal for survival. Yet over the longer frame of our lives our bodies do change quite substantially from birth to death. That can be scary or fascinating depending on our approach to life. Sorry about the trivial example but my daughter is in the process of upgrading her teeth from milk teeth to adult teeth and she finds it quite fascinating! As an adult, my teeth are getting quite worn out and I find that fascinating too!
And the story of our lives unfolds too. Sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly and we can go with the flow of change, we can resist it or we can participate in creating it. I guess most of us experience all three positions to change at various moments and the greater my self awareness, the more likely I am to choose the appropriate response. I’ve found it’s these changes in my life journey that make long term relationships so challenging. Sharing a life with someone else who is on their own path and living their own story.
What also fascinates me is the micro changes. And I guess this is what makes improv theatre so interesting. I notice, against the background of the longer term change, I’m constantly in a state of flux. My thoughts and emotions are constantly changing – if I choose to notice. And the extent I reveal that flowing life energy here and now is also part of what makes me interesting (or not).
Btw I found this through Twitter .. happy I did.
Hi Ian,
You’re so right, and I love your perspective – everything is changing in big or small ways ALL the time. We just tend to not be very aware of this. If we were to be more aware of all this change, I suspect that we’d be much more comfortable with change – we’d realise, “oh, everything is changing and always has been, and I’ve been okay… change is perfectly safe and healthy.”
Thanks for adding your thoughts – I love your sense of curiosity and fascination. I think curiosity is one of the most powerful states for thriving in life. Look forward to hearing more from you,
Cath
Wow, I have been looking for an improv class or workshop for exactly the reasons you offer, and now my enthusiasm is renewed! I love the improv theory that in order to create a vibrant scene, you have to accept everything that is offered up – such an incredible life lesson, too.
Sometimes when I’ve leapt in to change and things feel overwhelming or tumultuous, it’s actually comforting to remind myself that at least life isn’t boring ~ I certainly prefer the interesting path. Thanks for this!
Wow this article has to be one of my favorites on your site! Cath, thanks for sharing this. It has bought up a lot of thoughts and feelings in me and I am quite overwhelmed. While on one hand others perceive me as ‘changing’, as others have told me, I feel as I am remaining the same and I want to change! Ironic, huh? I feel I am looking for information, I got it, but I take a lot of time to integrate it.
I am really inspired by your saying you and your husband are not the same as when you are married. One one level I like this a lot and it really gets me excited, but on the other, because of how you took your vows, it seems it allows for growth, so there is change in consistency- in a way. Not sure how to explain it.
This is why I think people get scared and want to stay the same- they think they have to change ‘internally’. Though we kind of do, if our values or inner core reflect that expansiveness we all have inside, then it goes with the grain. I still need to find a better way to express this!
Thanks again.
@Briana: yeah, that’s a great mantra to have… “this overwhelm means my life is not boring!” When chaos is reigning in my life, I like to remind myself, “This is going to make a good story…” I totally recommend improv classes – they gave me some major personal shifts that totally knocked my socks off!
@Jennifer: thanks – so glad this post has given you so much food for thought. I did the classes about 7 weeks ago, and it’s taken me that long to process… so keep playing with it and see where it takes you. One of the great things about impro is that it’s all about having as many goes as you can, keeping moving, and keeping the energy up. I’m learning to get my changes by letting go of my need to collect more information and to rather just get out into doing something different and experimenting and getting real-world feedback, seeing where that goes and tweaking as I go. Impro really brought that message home to me.
This was a great post! I believe that it is so important to continue to grow and change throughout your life. I am constantly trying to get out there and experience new things that may turn into new passions or hobbies so that I do not become stagnant, and I encourage others to do the same. Change is a natural process, but unfortunately, as you point out, it is strongly resisted by some. I think everyone needs to be open to growing and changing as a person and supporting others in their own changes. If this process is stifled, we will live very limited, monotonous lives.
I love that quote.
“When you’re changing, you’re interesting…”
Not only are you more interesting, but the world around you becomes more interesting. Stability and security are just other names for being stagnant.
Hi John! I’m so with you. It’s been interesting to see another angle that’s been brought into the discussion of this post on Brazen Careerist:
http://www.brazencareerist.com/2009/08/10/why-resisting-change-is-boring
For me, it really highlights our big fears around change, and the ultimate reasons why we resist change – we’re afraid change will bring tragedy. I guess good and bad stuff happens and there’s so much we don’t have control over, so your perspective on the value of change boils down to whether you’re an optimist or a realist.
Cath
@Alicia G: I like your suggestion of the value in supporting each other through changes. Research shows that the greatest factor in creating resilience in both children and adults is not intelligence/ motivation/ upbringing/ financial stability or any of the other stuff we might think… it’s social support. My view is that the greatest investment we can make is in relationships – it’s what makes the good times more enjoyable and the bad times more bearable.
Thanks for adding your thoughts
Cath
SO GLAD to read this post!! I googled ‘change’ because my husband, daughter and I all feel we NEED and love it on a regular basis. We are feeling like something is wrong with us because we don’t want to be entrapped by owning a home (like we do). We would rather live in an apartment so that we don’t have the same ho-hum ‘caring for a home’ routine. My husband and I are both nurses and have started projects in our careers just like was described as ‘revolutionaries’.
Cath, I so appreciate this post. We have felt like we are the only people who like change in this manner. We thought something was really wrong with us. We have been married for 26 years and have spent much of that time trying to conform to the world’s view of how we should feel about ‘staying in a stable environment’. Now we are thinking about selling our home and doing medical missions!
Thanks for this site! Jane
@Jane: welcome to the tribe
(and welcome to the rest of your family too!) You’re PERFECT exactly as you are… go ahead and invent the lifestyle you’d most love to invent, with total disregard for the traditional social trajectory that we’ve all been socialized into following. The world is ready now, more than ever, for us to invent a lifestyle customized around our unique passions and eccentricities. And realise that your comfort with change is an incredible resource and a powerful life skill for thriving in this era – be proud of it!