note: this article is filled with links to previous articles when relevant as a way to help new subscribers orient a bit to the content here at The SMP.
I know the title of this piece is an overused pun, but it does tend to grab attention. I want to talk a bit about “The Big Shift.” I often claim to be having a very different experience than most non-affirming parents. I talk about my story as a “success story” even though my daughter is still trans-identified. I claim to be living a life that is profoundly changed for the better (as opposed to life B.I. or “before the identity”.)
So what’s different for me? It really all comes down to perspective. Shifting my thoughts about what’s happening, so I can have different feelings which in turn lead to a different experience. It’s such a simple thing, yet has such a profound impact. And it certainly isn’t easy, by any means!
The human creature is unique (we think) in our capacity for self-awareness, and as a result, we are vulnerable to uniquely human experiences like chronic stress and anxiety. These are states of dissociation that other animals don’t likely deal with. They only have the capacity for the current moment (though instinct will drive certain animals to take care of their future selves, i.e. squirrels storing nuts, bears gorging in the fall before hibernation, birds flying south for the winter) but humans spend inordinate amounts of time dissociating, pining to relive or redo the past or fretting about the future.
This ability to dissociate can also be helpful, though. Because another of our uniquely human abilities is what’s known as meta-cognition. The ability to dissociate from our thoughts and feelings in order to observe and manipulate them to suit our will. This intentionality is how one achieves “The Big Shift.”
It’s truly like changing your eyeglasses and suddenly seeing things in a whole new way. It can affect everything. The quality of your experience. Your relationships and how you see other people. How you think about the world and its systems, including those created by other humans. It raises your consciousness and increases your capacity for understanding and compassion, for vulnerability, for love, for appreciating the richness of life.
This may all sound pretty easy, but trust me, it’s not. We all emerge from childhood with some deeply imprinted patterns that can be really difficult to “observe” in a meta-cognitive state. I could truly nerd out on this all day and that kind of explains why I love my work as a life coach, helping others to recognize and observe these patterns in themselves, so they can then have some power over them and change them if they choose to put in the effort to do so. And make no mistake, it is effortful. This is where practice becomes so important.
The clients I work with will tell you this isn’t just a matter of understanding how this works–though I believe strongly that understanding is crucial. We must first believe we can make these meaningful changes in how we see the world. Once we get it, then we have that concept. We own it now and can make use of it. This is the power of naming things.
Then, the work starts. Identifying our patterns and recognizing them when they visit us. This is the “awareness” phase. We think we’re going to learn something about ourselves and then next time the opportunity arises to do something different, we will, right?! Haha! If only it were that easy. Resilience comes in handy here. Self-compassion. The courage to be vulnerable. That determination we had as babies when we were biologically driven to learn to walk, to keep getting up every time we fell on our diapered bottoms, to try again until we mastered the skill.
This is why support can be so helpful! Humans are wired to be in community, to find others who can see and hear us and share our pain, but also who can show us a way out of it–or at least a way to deal with it so that it doesn’t feel like it’s slowly killing us. We look for models who’ve gone before who can light up a “higher path” and hold our hand as we stumble along, trying to regain our footing and restore stability.
Even if we’re stumbling together toward that higher path, isn’t it easier when we’re holding hands? When we’re not on the path alone, trying to make our way through the obstacles or lost in the dark, it gives us hope. We’ve got each other. If we’re headed in the same direction, we can lean on each other, and when one of us falls, someone can give us a hand up, help us back to our feet, remind us that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
Then one day, we realize we’ve made it. The shift has happened. We look back and see how far we’ve come and notice that things feel different, they don’t hurt like they used to. Even if they still hurt, it’s not the same as the impotence, the soul-crushing “learned helplessness” that marked the early days of this parenting circumstance because we now know we can be in charge of our experience. If we don’t then take stock of our community and put support in place, it can be very easy to slip back into those old patterns. We want to ensure we’re connected to others who understand this work we’re doing, who are doing it themselves, and who will remind us of our commitment to this new way of being in the world.
If you’ve been following closely (I know some of you read everything that comes your way from The StoicMom Project and I hope you find a little shelter from the storm, as well as tips that can help you with the shift or support you to keep practicing if you’ve already had it) you know that some changes are coming to this Substack in November.
I’m implementing these changes as a way to support you toward your “success story”. I know and value the power of community. I don’t know that I totally agree with the assertion, “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” but I believe we are heavily influenced by those around us, and when we’re trying to make big changes in our lives, finding others who understand and can support us in those changes could mean the difference between reaching our goals and giving up out of exhaustion.
To provide you with such a community, I’ve decided to take advantage of Substack’s “Founding Member” tier and offer a way for parents who are committed to this path of healing to have more connection–to each other, to me, and to helpful concepts along the way, the new content component that I’m also launching in November. These concepts are intended to help with that understanding piece, the “a-ha” that leads to the meta-cognition, the first step in making “The Big Shift.” This content will offer concrete practices that can help you discover a whole new way to engage with life.
I know everything I’ve published over the last week or so has been about this in some way and it may be getting tiresome; I would ask that you bear with me as I ensure that everyone who needs to know this community is forming, sees my invitation to join hands in this work we’re doing to have a different experience, to make “The Big Shift”. I didn’t have this piece planned, but I woke this morning inspired to write this article. This usually means someone needed to read this one–I’ll likely discover who that was later today. (I always love when my inbox communicates who it was for. I look forward to meeting you on November 6 when this new community comes together live for the first time via zoom to introduce ourselves and begin to co-create a vision!)
If you’re ready to say “yes” to joining this community you can do so by clicking this button and choosing to upgrade to “Founding Member.”
If you have remaining questions, you can ask them in the comments or if you’re reading this in your email, you can just hit respond. ;)