The art of embracing change
© 2019 Lynen Media GmbH,
60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Publishing Group: Lynen Media GmbH,
D-60325 Frankfurt, all rights reserved
1st edition,
reproduction or distribution only
with the permission of the publisher
Project Supervision: K.M. Wieser
Typesetting and digital prepress:
Reiner Bergmann / SEHiGEL.DE, Aachen, Germany
info@lynen.info
eISBN 978-3-9821054-4-4
1. Introduction
2. The bold journey of life
3. What we can learn from brain research
4. Our emotions affect others
5. “Stages” by Hermann Hesse
6. Baby steps
7. Example: from electrical engineering to self-actualization in music
8. The seven phases of change
9. Be patient!
10. What to do when things spin out of control
11. Take a leap of faith
12. How long do you plan to cling to your perceived security?
13. “I want to stay just the way I am!”
— Really?
14. Pipe dreams?
15. Metamorphosis
16. In full flow, or: following your heart
17. The elephant’s leash
18. Jump and learn to fly!
19. Small yet far-reaching acts of courage
20. Living intuitively
21. The catastrophic brain
22. Thinking outside the box
23. Step up already!
24. The guiding light of curiosity and desire
25. Share your ideas with caution
26. A new horizon
27. Until you commit
28. Encore
Hello and welcome! I want to start by thanking you for picking up this book, and, as I do in all of my books, by offering the following piece of advice:
Take what you really need, what speaks directly to your heart, and leave the rest here.
With that done, we can skip the long, epic, tedious foreword, and embark on this journey together.
Learning to let go, to stop beating a dead horse, is a cumbersome process of overcoming ourselves. Why is daring to redefine ourselves so difficult? Why are we so reluctant to turn the page, even though we know instinctively that it’s long been time to start a new chapter? How often have we clung to the familiar — even after it has ceased to serve us — instead of venturing into the unknown?
We can’t keep living in the past; life is about moving forward. Things change. And we change. Whether we like it or not.
How can we learn to let things go and say enough is enough?
That is what we will be discussing in this book, and by the end, you will be a master of embracing change. Here’s to fresh starts and leaving the past behind.
Until recently, the prevailing view in the field of personality psychology was that a person’s character is fully developed by the time she or he turns 30, after which point it is set in stone. In recent years, however, neuroscientists have produced studies showing that our personalities continue to evolve throughout our lives, and a great deal of development can still occur even among the elderly. In other words, our brains are never finished maturing. Their circuitry rewires itself continuously until we die. Though this process tends to slow with age, our neuronal branches never stop growing. This enables us to respond to new ideas and challenges in a short time, and to lay the tracks for new trains of thought.
This book will clear the cobwebs from your brain and make room for new, far-reaching insights.
The effect of this is illustrated by the following story:
There once was a farmer who, on his deathbed, told his children: “Somewhere in my fields, I’ve buried a precious treasure. But where it lies, I’ll never tell!” After the farmer took his final breath, the siblings set to work digging and digging. They combed the fields from left to right, top to bottom, and once more from front to back for good measure. Alas, there was no treasure to be found. Or so they thought, for the treasure was not a bounty of riches or a pot of gold: it revealed itself the following year at harvest time, when the soil they tilled so thoroughly had produced their biggest yield yet, one that was abundant beyond the siblings’ wildest dreams.
The wheel of life, as I like to call it, is constantly turning, just as we are constantly changing — our bodies, our thoughts, and our feelings. Life is change. And as individual as each one of us is, we all go through similar phases:
We are relatively unaware of what’s going on around us the first year after we are born; our lives are all about milk and goo goo gaga.
Then we enter the minimalist phase, which lasts roughly between the ages of 1 and 2. We’re still mostly just eating, but we start becoming cognizant of the world we live in.
Between ages 2 and 4, our curiosity begins to take hold and occasionally push our parents to the brink of insanity. We are eager to learn, so we try to copy those around us and, in doing so, we learn our first critical structures. We learn more each day until we eventually perfect these imitations.
We spend ages 4 to 10 absorbing like a sponge everything that goes on around us.
Then, between 10 and 16, the hormones kick in. Life becomes an emotional roller coaster and we sometimes do things that we later regret. But these are formative moments. We experiment. We test our limits and, at times, the limits of everyone around us.
Ages 16 to 19: We just want to set the world on fire. We’re bursting with energy and passion; we think we have the world by the horns. Now is the time to make it on our own, to “go West.”
Ages 19 to 25: We mature. We experience a political awakening and discover that, beyond what we once held to be singular truth, there are other truths. We begin to see things from different perspectives and develop opinions.
Between 25 and 29, we discover our limits. We discover that not all of our plans always unfold as we hoped they would, and that when it comes to our intellectual and physical abilities, the realm of possibility is not, in fact, infinite.
Ambitious and with something to prove, we blossom between the ages of 29 and 35. We want to unleash our hidden power and we won’t wait a minute longer. Bring me success and bring it now!
Between 35 and 40, we begin to feel the effects of aging and realize that our well of strength will someday run dry. We still want to be successful, but we know that we will have to rely on the limited resources at our disposal, so we try not to waste them. We fix our eyes on the prize, but we have to proceed more efficiently. We march on.
Between 45 and 50, it’s clear that we no longer have the strength we had when we were 30, and all we want to do is keep pace with people a decade younger than ourselves. So we expend our energy more efficiently.
We might even reach our limits and ask ourselves: Was that all? Is there more? Do I want to undergo another transformation? Do I want to completely redefine myself?
Between 50 and 60 at the latest, that’s exactly what most of us want to do: redefine ourselves, break routine, shed old habits, and gain a new lease on life. The less we’ve sought out and experienced change in the years prior, the more urgent and powerful our desire for change will be in this phase.
After we turn 60, we feel our strength slowly, steadily dwindle. Our bodies grow weaker until around the age of 75. This can be difficult to accept; we want to keep going and lead an active life!
Between 75 and 85, we have an epiphany: I’m still here, and I’m (hopefully) doing relatively well! We ask ourselves: Did I lead a fulfilling life? What did I experience? Was I happy? Was I satisfied?
There’s nothing in life we regret as much as not having done everything we wanted to do, and the most bitter sentences begin: If only I had been courageous enough. On the other hand, we rarely regret the things at which we failed, because at least we can say we tried.
After we turn 85, if we make it that far, our development takes a turn. Our mental and physical abilities begin to slowly regress towards those of the child we once were. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to look back on a fulfilling life. But not everyone is so lucky.
Sometimes we can’t understand why things didn’t play out as we had imagined. We were once dreamers, full of hope, desire and ambition. Early on, our lives seemed to be on the path we had envisioned. We were in a caring relationship, we loved our job, and we surprised even ourselves with our seemingly boundless abilities.
But at some point, life took a turn; our hopes went unfulfilled, this hectic world overwhelmed us, perhaps we even suffered some terrible twist of fate. When these events threatened to bury us, we shut ourselves off and saw only the worst in things. Our disappointments and setbacks hoarded our attention, and we lacked the energy to be open to change and react nimbly to life’s curve balls. We suddenly felt as though we were being treated unfairly, bombarded with thoughts like, For heaven’s sake, why does this always have to happen to me? and What did I ever do to deserve this?
No matter how difficult the last few months or years have been, always remember that you have a choice: You can either let these things hold you back forever, or you can march steadfastly forward, and with a smile. Every day is an opportunity to liberate yourself from the grip of the past and start a new journey.
Some self-help books will assure you that everything will be fine if you simply let go of the past. But what they don’t really explain is how to do that.
I promised you an honest book, so I won’t pretend that I have figured it all out. When I have felt as though the carpet had been pulled out from under me, I would often ask myself: Why are things always so difficult? How could I have let this person down? Why did I have to lose my job? What’s the point of all this? And for the love of God, why do I need to walk on these hot coals until my feet blister?
Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can say that each of these situations concealed some valuable meaning. These experiences made me the person I am today. Every crisis, every difficult situation, every disappointment was a wake-up call, urging me: Keep going! Dare, dance, grow!
Like mental weightlifting, life kept adding weights to the barbell, preparing me incrementally for the next, heavier burden. Eventually, I came to understand that life never gives you more than you can handle at any given time.