The Ring of Fire and Having Courage

On my office desk, I have a pack of "Self-Care Cards" by Cheryl Richardson. A friend gave this 52 card deck to me years ago but I continue to use them, as they offer inspirational (and often strangely prophetic) messages week after week. What I usually do is turn a new one face-up at the start of a new week and see what it says. This week's message is: Release your ties to the past. When you let go of the old, you make room for the new.

How ironic as I planned to discuss The Ring of Fire with you this week (also known as what you can expect when you go through a major change).

In Martha Beck's life coaching school, we learn about the change process before we learn about anything else. According to Beck, there are 4 stages one progresses through as one makes a shift in his/her life. As you can probably guess, for life coaches-whose entire job is to help clients change areas of their lives where they experience unhappiness or discomfort-this is an important foundational piece of knowledge. I personally love it because when things change in my life I usually feel unsettled, uncertain and scared to pieces. What the hell is going on?!? becomes my daily mantra when things are going awry. And one thing I really dislike is NOT knowing what the hell is going on.

Now that I know about the Ring of Fire, it's not so difficult to transgress this rough terrain. Knowing that this is a normal stage in the process of change is comforting, liberating in fact, because I know that good things are on their way.

When you let go of the old, you make room for the new.

If there's a change going on in your life- maybe it's a marriage and possibly a name change with this marriage, a move to a different city, buying a new house, changing jobs or positions, making new friends and leaving old ones behind or even redecorating-you may find yourself going through The Ring of Fire. The past six months, I've gone through all of the aforementioned changes. Anytime there is a transition in your life from one major thing to another (whether welcomed or unwelcomed), the Ring of Fire is around the corner. Being prepared for it makes it easier to deal with. Instead of facing a change with resistance and struggle, you can more smoothly and gracefully navigate it when you know what's coming.

I would say, at the ripe age of 31, that I am a Ring of Fire expert. I say this because my life has been full of huge changes. Before the age of 15, I lived in 4 different states and 6 different cities. Each time we moved I had to switch schools, make new friends and often learn new regional social norms. (New England is quite different from the South which is even more different than the Midwest). Because I had no choice in the matter, I had to learn how to deal with change. After awhile, I began to enjoy it. As I grew older, I started to welcome it and then initiate it when needed.

At 19 I was diagnosed with cancer, at 20 I was bald and when my hair did grow back it was a completely different color and texture than before. At 21 I started a major in social work and at 22 I decided to double major in English and Education instead. At 24 I left my college boyfriend suddenly when I found out about his infidelity and at 25 I moved across the country to join Teach for America. At 28 I left my career to hike the Pacific Northwest and at 29 I moved to Capitol Hill to work in ed policy. Change, change, change, until life began to feel like one big adventure and even the changes I didn't initially want began to bring me a sense of freedom.

If you look back upon your own life, I'm sure you can think of many huge changes as well. In hindsight, you may realize how beneficial they were. But even the ones you initiated were difficult at times I bet, probably due to the Ring of Fire. So what the heck IS this Ring of Fire?

The Ring of Fire is what happens in the first stage of change but it is not the initial part of change (Martha Beck calls this first stage of change SQUARE ONE). It is what happens when you are no longer in denial that things can stay the same as they were and the old begins to completely dissolve. What happens on a psychological level is that a part of your ego, a part of your past identity, is "burned up" with the realization that things are different. Egos and parts of egos do not like to be burned up and dissolved. They are like any life form and they will go kicking and screaming until their death. If you are like most of us, you identify with your ego and so it can feel, literally, as if a part of you is dying (which, in essence, it is). The only way through the Ring of Fire is to:

-Disbelieve the thoughts that are causing you suffering
AND/OR
-Grieve your losses

When you let go of the old, you make room for the new.

Let me give you some real-life examples of the Ring of Fire:

-A friend of mine has published several articles in prestigious academic journals under her maiden name. She gets married. Yay! She is so happy to be married to the love of her life. She changes her last name to her husband's but then, when it's time to publish a new article, feels devastated because the author's name is now different. She feels as if the esteemed author (her maiden name) is gone and she has to start all over (with her married name). She feels that this loss of her maiden name is actually a loss of her identify and of her self.

-My husband and I bought a new house and moved from the city proper to the suburbs. Peace, quiet, less traffic and less pollution. Suddenly, I feel threatened because my artistic hipster city identity seems to be replaced with the typical get-married-and-move-to-the-suburbs identity. "All of the creative publishing opportunities that seemed to fall in my lap when I lived in the city will be gone because I will morph into a suburban mom! I will leave my beloved writing behind to drive kids to soccer practice in a van!" I find myself thinking and shudder at these thoughts.

-A colleague of mine is diagnosed with cancer. He has built his career and his identity on being a healthy, happy and independent man who has a lot of fun and freedom. Now he is very sick and facing his mortality.

-My dad lost his job in a field he has worked in for over 20 years. He says he wants to go back to school and become a teacher and speaks quite passionately about this. But it's difficult for him to imagine that a person in their mid-50's can start all over in a new career.

Going through the Ring of Fire is the hardest part of change for most people. BUT once you get through it, not only will you have burned up parts of your ego that did not serve you, but you will reach a most delicious and beautiful sense of peace. I would try to describe it here, but it is really so amazing it can't be captured in words. You've got to get there yourself to see what I mean.

Okay, so here's the thing I've been noticing about a lot of my clients as they reach the Ring of Fire.

They don't want to go through it.

After working with clients for about 3-4 sessions, I notice that a lot of them start to go through the first process of major change. They break-up with crappy boyfriends, decide to confront their family members, break unhealthy habits, start going back to school for their dream jobs. Then they get to the part where the Ring of Fire starts licking at their toes and they get scared. Then they GO BACK TO THE THING WHICH MADE THEM MISERABLE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Yes, that's right. They take back the crappy boyfriends, become a doormat again at family functions, go back to overeating and smoking and decide to withdraw from night school and instead take on more hours at the job that they hate. I also notice at about this time they stop signing up for more coaching sessions. I have a hunch they know I won't let them get away with their denial and so they avoid anything and anyone which may insist that they face the truth.

I've also noticed that during this time, when clients go back to the thing which made them miserable in the first place, they begin to: drink a lot of alcohol or caffeine; smoke; overeat, overwork or overdo anything; do drugs; watch a lot of tv; go on shopping sprees; spend a lot of time with other people and not much time alone. Basically they avoid anything which would require deep personal reflection and do anything that will help numb themselves from feeling how miserable they are. I watch this process compassionately because I know what it is like. I have, countless times, also run back to my personal source of misery because the Ring of Fire seemed so scary. From experience, I also know what happens next. The misery deepens, this time the situation one wanted to leave escalates into more suffering, and one must start the change process all over again.

It is painful to watch the clients I love go back to the miserable situations they called me to help them leave. However, I know that eventually the misery will get so bad they will either decide that the Ring of Fire is a better option than the suffering, or life will propel them into the Ring of Fire and they won't get to make the choice. (Cancer, or any life threatening illness, throws one into the ultimate Ring of Fire.)

If you find yourself making a big change in your life, or life has thrown you a huge curve ball out of left field, here are some strategies I use with clients to make the Ring of Fire a little more bearable.

1. Identify the painful thoughts associated with this change.

*If it's hard for you to locate the painful thoughts, you may want to do the following:

a) Write out the circumstance (no opinions allowed here, just the facts. See my example below for details).

b) Fill in the blank: And this means______________________________________.

c) What you've filled in the blank with is the painful thought.

2. Complete the 4 questions using Byron Katie's The Work (see my earlier post on this if you're not familiar with Byron Katie or see my example below).

3. Allow yourself to grieve the loss that accompanies this change. This also means allowing yourself space to get sad and angry. (My next post will be on honoring your anger as go through a transition).

4. Know that, as hard as this part of the change cycle may be, an incredible peace and brighter tomorrow is on the horizon. Take comfort in this knowing.

When you let go of the old, you make room for the new.

Gabrielle's Example:

1. Identify the painful thought associated with the change.

a.) Circumstance: We left the city, bought a condo and moved to the suburbs.

b.) And this means: I'm going to stop writing and being creative and be a soccer mom instead.

c) The painful thought is: Because of this change, I'm going to stop being creative.

2. Byron Katie's The Work:

a) Is it true that you will stop being creative now that you've moved to the suburbs?

My authentic response: People in the suburbs aren't creative! They are soccer moms! People in the city are creative!

b) Can you absolutely know that it's true that you will lose your creativity because you moved to the suburbs?
My authentic response: Um no. I can't ABSOLUTELY know that this will happen.

c) How do you feel and react when you think this thought?

My authentic response: Crappy. I feel like I sold out a valuable part of myself. I feel like someone very beloved to me has died. My stomach clenches up. I start glaring at suburban moms who drive vans.

d) Who would you be without this thought?

My authentic response: (I have to pause here for awhile and be still because it's difficult at first to pretend what it would be like without this thought) I feel lighter, free. I feel calm and assured. I realize that my new house is quieter and I actually have my own office here so that I can spend even more quality time writing.

e) Turn-arounds (These are thoughts that could be just as true as the original thought except they feel a lot better):

-I WILL NOT stop being creative by moving to the suburbs. (Creativity has no geographic limitations; it's creative for God's sake!)

-I will be MORE creative by moving to the suburbs. (At our cramped place in the city, I had no office and it was loud and noisy. Here I have my own writing space and more peace and quiet which helps foster my creativity).

-The suburbs could help my creativity. (I see a lot of moms around who seem to center their lives around their kids. I bet they would enjoy some kind of coaching workshop on rediscovering creativity! I could create this!)

3. I allowed myself space to feel the sadness that comes with any change and to grieve my loss. There are things I miss about living in the city and it's completely 100% okay to grieve this loss. I will miss watching the cool people walking down the street everyday, all of the creative, artistic venues, and the energy of Atlanta.

4. I remind myself that this move will bring good fruit to my creativity. When you let go of the old, you make room for the new.

*Next time you make a change or a change makes you, and you feel yourself tempted to run away from the Ring of Fire right back to your source of misery, try the steps listed above and see if they help. Having a life coach hold your hand through the Ring of Fire wouldn't hurt either. :)