HEROES HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE

BEGINNINGS: Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep upon you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized. Then, later, they spring. ~Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assasin


It is the season of change. The holidays have faded, we can see more clearly with the leaves off the trees, and the snow piles nudge us to stay home more than usual. So we end up staring in the mirror trying to reason out how to improve ourselves. Lose weight? Stand up to an oppressive relative? Finally quit smoking? Stop the affair?


With all my years as a therapist, I am a big fan of change. I’ve spent years trying to figure out why it happens when it does, and why it fails to happens when it doesn’t. But I want to push beyond the shallow New Years’ Resolutions construct that plugs the media hole between the end of the Christmas holiday and Valentine’s Day.


I once spent a year asking all the therapists I knew to tell me what they thought accounts for people’s ability to create a wanted change in their lives – in habits, attitude, behavior, lifestyle. After the usual stunned and trapped expression passed, they each gave me a completely different answer: People change when they have something to lose, or something to gain, or the pain of keeping things as is starts to exceed the pain of changing. It is readiness, or their pride is at stake. They get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Or the consequences of not changing foreshadow disaster. Perhaps they become inspired by another’s example, or have a spiritual moment that gives them hope. Or God does it. Or there’s no telling.


Aren’t these therapists, people who traffic in change and transformation, I thought, supposed to be up on this topic and ready with an answer? For that matter, shouldn’t I?


Lacking consensus and sensing the whiff of truth in each of these wide-ranging answers, I refined my question: In the change you have witnessed, what were the various ingredients that had to be present to allow it to take place? A recovering friend answered right away – honesty, openness, willingness, the backbone of the 12 step approach. A narrative therapist blurted out her answer without hesitation – an audience, she said. It was a simple as that, to her.


The rest, failing to come up with such a sure and tidy answer, turned to personal storytelling. One told me about deciding to live in the face of a delibilitating illness that had invited him to consider suicide. Another described the relationship of two professors from warring countries who initiated regular dialogues between people who previously had never even occupied the same room, which kick-started the growth of empathy and acceptance. It reminded me of what I already knew – our answers are always embedded in our stories.


There are plenty of experts who pontificate on the matter of personal change. My favorite is James O. Prochaska of the University of Rhode Island, who asked similar questions in a more scientific way and came up with some concrete answers. He started publishing his theory of change in 1977 and is still at it. Every year, I wait for the New Year’s Resolution media blitz to discover Prochaska, but so far, no soap.


Change, he says, is a process, not an event, that allows us to first recognize the need for change, get used to the idea, and finally carry it out. It is not a linear process, but a kind of spiral where we get started, backslide, catch up, and keep slogging. These are necessary loops in the process of creating longstanding change. Clinicians call them relapses, people in recovery call them research, in our mirrors we call them failures that constitute a reason to give up. Prochaska learned all of this studying people trying to stop smoking, a nut it took me years of attempts to finally crack.


Reducing his work to one paragraph isn’t adequate, but here’s a glimpse: You start with the precontemplation stage (Why should I go to that damn gym? I have better things to do), progress to contemplation (Okay okay, I am out of shape. When the weather turns I’ll probably start going.), to preparation (I’d better start that water aerobics class in three weeks), to action (I’m going twice a week. I kind of like it), finally to maintenance (I feel better than ever. I’m sticking with this). See? He’s an expert who really understands the struggle. Why doesn’t everyone know about him and his work?


This is the Get Noticed decade, after all. Whatever you hope to do – sell books, guest on Oprah!, make the celebrity news cycle, get a speaking gig at your local library – you first have to Get Noticed. This should be easier than ever before in the age of You Tube, Facebook, blogging, Tweeting and whatever is going to debut next week to make them passé. Cyberfame has made word of mouth a more powerful and accessible force than imaginable before. Any of us, in theory, now has a crack at worldwide attention. Look at Susan Boyle whose You Tube audition on Britain’s Got Talent led to her debut CD breaking U.S. sales records. I was happy to help. I must have watched the clip 20 times, and bought that CD as soon as it came out, doing my little part to help fulfill her dream.


I checked Prochaska on You Tube. There were three mentions, all of other people talking about his ideas in brief clips with a total of 252 hits, a little shy of her 100 million. He may want to recruit a media consultant to change that.


Look at other recent success stories. Elizabeth Gilbert took a trip to foreign lands to become whole again after a relationship debacle, at least purportedly. The truth: she had secured a juicy book deal before she stepped on the first plane, and the wildly successful Eat, Pray, Love resulted. Julie Powell, a young woman who was in a bit of a trough, somehow decided it would improve her life if she took a year to prepare every one of Julia Child’s classic recipes and blog about it. She was right. She sold the film rights and ended up being played by Amy Adams in the film version while Meryl Streep played Julia, assuring its success. Now, Chicago writer and yoga instructor Robyn Okrant blogged about her year-long effort to follow every bit of advice that Oprah doled out, received a book deal, and is poised to become the latest media darling.


What accounts for their success? In each case, there is unmistakable talent. Boyle belted out her song like she’d starred on Broadway. Gilbert was already a proven author, once a nominee for the National Book Award, and exceedingly skillful at crafting her narration and tone. Powell lacks Gilbert’s writing flair, relying often on bursts of profanity rather than carefully crafted prose, but came up with a concept that attached her star to a compelling and beloved character in Julia. We don’t know Robyn on Oprah very well yet, but at first glance, she seems earnest and personable, like her subject. But she also seems centered, as a yoga instructor should, and quiet, the antithesis of Oprah. That contrast should make for compelling dramatic tension as Robyn tries to live as Oprah advises. As I write this, someone is no doubt casting the movie. I think Maggie Gyllenhaal would make a great Robyn, and for Oprah, how about Sherrie Shepherd?


But there is more. In each case the woman embarked on a classic hero’s journey, or should I say heroine’s journey? Just like Odysseus trying to get back home from the Trojan War, they each pursued a quest, and suffered the trials of the resulting journey. They encountered numerous obstacles and temptations both practical and emotional, passed a series of tests, overcame their enemies, and ultimately brought home a treasure. We love Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz for their fulfillment of these requirements. Why not apply them to our own new challenges, our next beginnings?


In the hero’s journey, the protagonist is supposed to resist the call to adventure, but I’m ready, listening for the call myself, ready to set out on my next quest. I’ve already got Prochaska as a mentor and guide, even if he needs a little help in the fame department, and I have a list of possible choices. Will I finally conquer my disinterest in that gym? Go out and Get Noticed so I can send out my book proposal again and prove I have a platform to sell books? Or devote a month to writing 50,000 words on one of those five ideas I have for a novel?


I’ll soon choose one and set out, thereby conquering my enemy – distraction by all the other things fighting for my attention. What will your next challenge be? Think of it as you’re hero’s journey and I promise it will beat the heck out of any New Year’s Resolutions you came up with.


CBH 01/10