photo credit: Daffa Rayhan Zein on pexels.com
In the last column I wrote about those times when change is forced upon you by circumstance. It was about the life changing events such as forest fires and floods that threaten personal security, family and home. Change, of any kind, can also come by subtler moments, the sort of thing that pulls you up abruptly and you ask yourself, what just happened here? Those are the moments when your inner Rubik’s cube starts moving.
In previous columns I have written about the different methods by which our conscious and unconscious minds organize information. Each arrive at their own understandings of the world. It explains in part how people continue in established behaviours when evidence mounts for a change. Facts and logic are conscious mechanisms. The unconscious mind does not hear those arguments. The two sets of gears do not mesh. Facts and logic do not convince the unconscious mind.
And yet, there are times that some serious reconsideration of a matter is needed. This will involve the cooperation of both phases of mind in order to effect a transition and arrive at a new understanding of what is true. A few ways that can happen I am calling critical mass, re examined premises and high impact events. Slow, fast, easy or tough, does not matter. They all can lead to change in one’s way of understanding something, and consequently, behaving.
An external mechanism, such as a lockdown or evacuation, can force the matter with a temporary change in behaviour. This will not necessarily alter the way individuals act, nor does it change the way governments, made up of individuals, make decisions. More permanent change can happen when information piles up to a critical mass so that it bludgeons its way into being as a whole entity, an understanding that there will have to be a new way to do things. It takes, for example, a lot of information, stated repeatedly and by different people in different forms, to change a government’s course of action. Pick any law or policy regarding civil rights, cigarette smoking, clean water; this is how it came about.
On an individual level, the information we take in may have the same sort of effect. We all live with ideas we hold to be true because they build stability into our world. That means we place a degree of trust in people and institutions, the things that stabilize the parts that can go wrong. We partially operate on facts and solid knowledge, partially on hope and faith. Our behaviours are based on these concepts.
The challenge to one of those accepted truths can be as direct as an evacuation order. It can be as subtle as something a friend said. Whatever the starting point, it starts a train of thought. Maybe the challenge on the path is with more evidence, or the emerging reality of how you actually feel about a matter. The heart wants what it wants is also true in the converse: the bad feeling in your gut may not let you take that course. The point is how to handle that new thing, to arrive at a fundamental shift in what you accept as true, and change what you do.
It may be that the premise upon which behaviour rests requires examination. What assumption is no longer true? It is a process that can take up a lot of mental space and energy. It means leaving familiar territory. It generally takes something important to shift out of any comfort zone.
Here in Canada, in 2023, our forests are burning. There has been just enough climate warming to stress trees into heightened vulnerability to pests and fires. The pattern of wildfires mimics the zones where the local temperatures have become too warm for the health of the trees in that area. The fires are a fact. Is it enough of a fact change behaviour?
The tipping point of information is not in the weather, it is in the individual. How much evidence does anyone, or the individuals that set policy, need?
It turns out to be a lot. People do not easily accept whatever realities might force a rethink on what has been working for them. It is not easy to accept evidence that obliges someone to change their ways. There is no real reason to look at the underlying assumptions by which they live if in fact life is going well enough. This holds true for one person, or the collective decision making group, be it government or corporation.
Not looking at the basic premises at such times has consequences for the individual. One of the problems with holding an unsupportable belief is the level of anxiety that results. If you suspect something might be wrong about a matter, one response is to be vigilant for signs that there is, in fact, no problem. It is hard to relax when you need lots of verification that the house of cards is going to hold up. I think that when you truly understood a matter you can begin to relax. The priorities fall into place and the peripherals matter less. Truly calming down means you have come to a realistic appreciation of the matter at hand.
Think of anxiety as an early warning system. This is your unconscious telling you it does not fully understand something, and it needs some clear information. Specifically, it is seeking the truth of the matter. What is really going on? Reassurance will not work; this is when you need to shift your understanding. It is always better to know the truth, as bad as it might be. You can then prepare how to handle the matter.
I have known a few people that have gone through a divorce in their lives, and the story line sometimes goes like this. One day, the simple truth comes to mind in a form such as I don’t love them anymore, or, this is over. The simple, unadorned truth of it, is the distillation of many experiences that felt wrong. This is the point when someone has realized they have enough evidence. Actually, there has typically been enough evidence for a while. The difference is the shift in the fundamental premise.
The high impact moment is one quick way to change some aspect of your personal understanding of the world. It is like when a pillar of a structure crumbles.
There is the old saying about knowing who your friends are in tough times. This wisdom extends to knowing you are safe despite the pandemic, the wildfires, the floods, the high winds. Both point out the fact that we hold tight to the idea that the things we need the most are in fact present and stable. Ourselves, and those close to us, are safe. The fires are way over there, not here. The tornados are somewhere else too. The Covid 19 virus is here but there are vaccinations. It is not so bad, I had it, just like the flu. Let’s go out to dinner. These are the kind of foundational pillars on which we may base our actions.
Some will keep their belief in their personal security against all odds. What is striking is how often people accept public health mandates or obligatory evacuations, then go back to precisely the same conditions they were in before. Like the ad says, do what you will, the virus doesn’t care. The environment doesn’t care. You can not negotiate with these things. What you can do is uncover your own basic premises and revise them. The basement is leaking. You can keep on patching, or dig out the foundation and fix it.
No one wants to do this. It is hard work to change what you believe to be true. What is also hard work is the endless rationalizating that keeps the old way in place. The many reasons why the truth of a matter must not be, er, true.
An event of great impact may force a different understanding on you. Impact is meaningful, it is emotional and it is personal. That is the chain that takes an external event deep into your unconscious mind and rattles the foundations. It challenges the things we believed in to feel safe. Sometimes those assumptions need challenging because they no longer serve in a changing world.
So, what do you do when confronted with a high impact event?
Your mind will take the reality of a matter and rebuild new understandings around it. The process may leave you feeling shaken, but at least the new understanding can show a path forward. Whatever the new reality, whether it is in your living situation or your health, moving house or wearing a mask, the mind adjusts and rebuilds. There is a line in the 2021 documentary The River Runner, about Scott Lundgren, a man who spent his life kayaking rough river water. After an almost unbearable series of tragedies he concludes that there is little control in life; the best you can do is show up with heart. What he gave up was believing he could control whatever came at him, and this allowed him to move into a newer life.
You can try some of the the following ways to navigate a high impact event.
Ask the right questions. This can be quite challenging. There are lots of distracting issues to wade through to find the one that matters. For example, is climate change going to harm you? Just like other seemingly intractable situations, there are a lot of deflections available. Soothing answers to the question run along the lines of, it is not that bad, it is happening elsewhere or my situation (insert any reason here) is not so vulnerable. Alright, maybe you and yours will escape direct harm. What if highways and bridges are compromised or shut. Will the supplies you rely on become more expensive, less available, unavailable at any cost? Can you quantify, realistically, the actual chances? Not easily.
Climate change harms established environments in forms such as heat, drought, severe storms and flooding. If it does not threaten you directly, there will be indirect effects. Hint: the insurance companies collect very good data so they can continue to sell a product and make a profit. If they stop covering house mortgages, if insurance is denied for a house in a flood zone, you can take that to the bank, because they certainly do. The question moves from, is climate change a threat, to what steps can I take in the face of this reality?
What do I do about Covid 19? Similar responses (not so bad, not here, I am not vulerable for any reason) are to be found in the same places. But the objections to that approach are also the same. Perhaps you are well, but there are indirect threats to your wellbeing. Deaths and long covid are affecting many people, most you do not know. That group includes those you rely on to package meat, say, or ship product, or provide health care. Teachers. Plumbers. Anyone, actually. The question shifts from negotiating with a virus to managing the risks in front of you.
After asking good questions, the next thing to do is look for patterns. In people, one of the best predictors of future behaviour is past behaviour. The principle works equally well for bad behaviour as good. The former might encompass a pattern of rule breaking or irresponsibility. The latter might include facing adversity, responding with integrity, telling the truth and sustaining effort over long periods of time despite challenges. This means taking a lot of data points over time into consideration. A few examples are just that, no more than a dust cloud. Not too useful. Repeated examples all lining up in the same direction are what you are looking for as indicators of what will come next.
The same principle goes for climate change. Has the pattern of weather changed, or are there more tornados, droughts, crop failures, heat deaths, wind damage, than in the past? There is a strong pattern of increasingly disruptive weather events, species extinction and environmental degradation. The results are multiple direct and indirect effects. It also holds for the pandemic. Are people still getting sick? Are people still suffering from long covid? What do the life expectancy numbers look like in your country?
Finally, sometimes there is simply a last straw, an overwhelming experience, something that strikes you with such impact that it changes everything. We even have a myth in the western world that covers it, the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The modern remake of that is when Neo takes the red pill. Once you bite the apple or take the pill, there is no going back. It is experiential, and you know it when it comes to you. The face of rubik’s cube has shifted.
So, when faced with change, ask good questions. Look at patterns. Know that one event, that fact of great personal impact, can change everything. When the internal shift happens, you can act.