Here is the BAD news first. Change stinks. (We covered this in detail last week.) Change is hard. And it takes a long time. 

Now for the GOOD news, we CAN change. 

I am talking about real change. Embodied change. Most change that is being "sold" in the market place today is not integrated or holistic change. It may impact behavior. It may even get results.  However, most of the time it's not sustainable change.  Why is that? 

People get tripped up because they are attempting to "manage" a change. Webster says that "manage" is "to make and keep compliant." Therefore if we are going to manage a change, it is going to demand constant attention. We are constantly using our energy making and keeping ourselves compliant. This subtle drag of energy slowly leads to stress and overwhelm. We have to constantly keep our will power engaged to make sure we don't slip into old habits. 

What is the solution?

Sustainable change is integrated and holistic. Real change occurs when our "way of being" changes.  Our way of being includes our way of seeing, our way of doing, and our way of checking. 

• Our way of seeing is how we perceive the world — the meaning that we create out of our experience. 
• Our way of doing is our physical body and what we do with it. 
• Our way of checking is our evaluating, measuring, and monitoring that everything is OK. We look out at the physical world to check and make sure we remain safe. 

These three combined make up our way of being. Sustainable change demands that each of these ways of being change. And in the changing of these we develop and evolve. 

Sound easy? Well, in my next post I will walk you through a very specific example of how this works.