CHANGE, PART 1: RESISTANCE TO CHANGE – A NEW THOUGHT DILEMMA

“There is no greater mistake than to be afraid of change, and yet many intelligent people dread it and cling to what is customary and familiar. To be afraid of change is to doubt the providence of God. It is an unintelligent fear of the unknown. . . . Welcome every change that comes into every phase of your life.”

~ Emmet Fox, “Find and Use Your Inner Power” 

Let’s talk about change.

I have been in New Thought, in Religious Science to be specific, since 1989. During that time, I have read countless books, articles, blog posts, and social media posts about how to use my mind to change my life for the better. I have read Ernest Holmes, Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Joseph Campbell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Trine, Thomas Troward, Emmet Fox, Emma Curtis Hopkins, Marianne Williamson, Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Don Miguel Ruiz, Marion Woodman, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and on and on. I have read spiritual, business, motivational, political, scientific, and other kinds of authors. I have watched videos, full-length movies, gone to conferences, retreats, classes, workshops, rituals, had hundreds of deep conversations and read more than a few bumper stickers. I have spoken, presented, been on panels, taught, and written my share for others as well.

Through all of that, I am almost continually amazed that despite all of the training that those in New Thought receive about one thing – change – that there is so much resistance to change at every level within our movement. It is almost as if many of us were suffering from methathesiophobia.

“Metathesiophobia” — (noun) Described as a fear of unwanted change, metathesiophobia reveals a deeper personal and existential challenge than most phobias. Metathesiophobia is rooted from an inner insecurity and the knowledge that we cannot control every detail in our lives, such as your best friend moving away or entering adulthood. (LINK)

When it comes to change, many in New Thought, just as many in the general population, are conservative in the sense that they do not seek change beyond limited areas of their lives; and often resist change that is someone else’s idea or that calls them out of a place of relative comfort.

“Change is simply motion within Life.” 

~ Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind

Maybe we in New Thought make so many personal changes that we become a bit change-averse after a while. We come to recognize the costs, in personal energy, in unexpected consequences, in extra work, and in personal pain – so we back off a bit. We may develop another malady, psychosclerosis – a hardening of the attitudes. This may be mostly an unconscious process that occurs over time.

“Change is hard because people don’t only think on the surface level. Deep down people have mental maps of reality — embedded sets of assumptions, narratives and terms that organize thinking. . . . People almost never change their underlying narratives or unconscious frameworks.”

~ David Brooks, NYTimes 1/29/2013

Often, community and organizational changes can be more challenging than individual changes. They require cooperation with others in addition to personal changes. When a center moves to a new location or changes the number of services and/or service times and people have to adjust, they often resist the change (even to the point of no longer attending), even if intellectually they can see the value in the changes.

The Integration process between the former United Church of Religious Science and Religious Science International into Centers for Spiritual Living was and continues to be the driver for a vast number of changes. The “conversation” about whether and how to accomplish the Integration took nine years. The first two years of that time was spent communicating the idea to the field and some was spent getting to the point where a significant majority were in favor of joining the organizations together. The next seven years was spent primarily doing two things – first, convincing some stakeholders that the aspects of their own culture that they treasured would, at least for the most part, remain intact, and second, working to undo a fair amount of mis-information being shared rather loudly by a few stakeholders who were strongly against the Integration. Even the word Integration was coined by a consultant to replace the word “merger” so as to make the concept more palatable to some. So the process did not exactly speed along.

We are now four years into the new organization and the growing pains are still evident. Some embrace the new willingly, some still foster grievances about the “loss” of their former organizational culture. Some still identify people by which organization they were affiliated with before the Integration.

Over in Unity, an attempt was made to merge the Unity Worldwide Ministries and the Unity World Headquarters. That merger did not happen.

I believe that we in New Thought have a lot to learn about change at every level – personal, communal, and organizational. We need to foster the development of better leadership skills at every level of the movement so that we are better able to stay abreast of our rapidly changing culture, technology, and education. We can no longer afford to resist change, for change is upon us at increasing speed. Fortunately, we who know how to master change using the great spiritual and psychological principles of New Thought’s founders. So I would say that we need to step up our game.

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

~ George Bernard Shaw

For one thing, we need to look at the idea that changes to our organization, or to how we do services or classes, or whether we do outreach, somehow threaten our principles. As an example, there are a vocal few on the CSL Ministers’ List Serve call out anyone who suggests that a spiritual community or (God forbid) CSL as a whole, embrace spiritually motivated social activism. The message is clear – RELIGIOUS SCIENCE DOES NOT TELL ANYONE WHAT TO DO, WE TEACH PEOPLE CONSCIOUSNESS. The authors of these “messages,” whom I personally respect, seem to fail to see the irony in their telling others what to do by saying that Religious Science doesn’t tell people what to do.

Some fear of change arises from an unconscious fear of success.

“Accommodating change and uncertainty requires a looser sense of self, and ability to respond in various ways. This is perhaps why qualified success unsettles those who are locked into fixed positions. The shift back to failure is a defensive measure.”

~ Rebecca Solnit (LINK)

There is an additional irony in the example about the Ministers’ List Serve. The stance of the “verbal few” flies in the face of the fact that in creating the Centers for Spiritual Living organization by approving the founding documents in 2011, the organization nearly unanimously (99%) adopted a set of values and principles which clearly includes spiritually motivated social activism along with strategic spiritual partnerships to foster our vision of #AWorldThatWorksForEveryone. I have posted about this before (LINK). This is not the topic at hand, only an illustration of it.

“But time inexorably marches on, and people evolve. No historical solution is ever permanent. If you are unwilling to change quickly enough, you lose control of the situation.”

~ Albert Camus, Algerian Chronicles

The topic at hand is resistance to change and the refusal of some to see a way forward in the CSL organization and local communities for spiritually motivated social activism is but one example. Another is our collective refusal to seriously look at the diminishing participation in Sunday services and other “church-like” activities. Instead of actively planning ahead to explore the development new models and teaching innovation (which even some mainstream denominations have been doing, in some cases for decades), we continue to teach our new ministers as if we were in a stable situation instead of one in rapid transformation. And there is the general need in today’s fast-evolving times to embed a sense of innovation in every organization’s values system as well as in its operations. Why do we resist so? Your comments are appreciated.

“Change is inevitable. Progression is a choice.”

~ Sonya Teclin

In my next post, I will explore a model that can add to our understanding the dynamics of change and our resistance to it as we move forward – The Edgewalker Model developed by Judi Neal.

Copyright 2016 – Jim Lockard