The Natural Law of Cycles...
"All of life presents itself as a cycle of cause and effect. When this cycle is negative, there are three ways to change. You can change the cause, change the effect, or choose the most powerful option... become the cause!"

– Bill Crawford

I have chosen this particular sentiment for this time of the year (just before the holidays) for several reasons. First, I would guess that many of us feel effected by the holidays in many different ways. When that effect is negative (i.e. we are alone during this time of year, or we are with family but we experience the old familial angst around the behavior of others,) I wanted to give those who were interested a way to change their experience. Secondly, this "Natural Law of Cycles" is a part of the new concept that I am going to be rolling out sometime in January, and I wanted to give those of you on my email list a sneak preview of at least part of the new focus.

When we find that the cycle we are in is one of frustration, stress, worry, anger, fear, etc., what can we do? Well, as this week's quote suggests, the first option is to change the cause. On some level, this is what most people try, however, I'm going to suggest that the reason that they are generally less than successful is because they are beginning with a belief that not only isn't true, but one that paints them as dependent and powerless.

In other words, we believe that any situation is "making us feel bad" (stressed, frustrated, angry, etc.) what we are really saying is that the negative aspects in life have the power to define us. This, of course, will never work because when we hold a basic belief that some external situation/person has the power to make us feel or behave in some way, this leaves us powerless and at the mercy of who or what we happen to encounter. We may try to persuade some person to be different or attempt to "make the holidays" fulfill our need to be loved," but this almost always backfires, and we wind up feeling worse.

Therefore, this suggestion around changing the cause isn't about changing the world so that we feel better. What I mean when I suggest that we change the cause is that we take responsibility for creating our surroundings in such a way that we are well served. For example, we make sure we get the rest we need, we eat when we are hungry, we become very particular about the people with whom we spend time, we take a different route to avoid traffic, or at least choose something pleasant to listen to while we drive, etc. Basically, what we do is take100% responsibility for taking care of ourselves as we would take care of someone we loved by honoring our body's signals (fatigue=rest, hunger=food, hot baths =Ahhhhhh:-) and changing what we can.

The second option is more powerful, however, it is certainly a road less traveled, because most people don't even think it's possible. It's about dealing with the cycle of cause and effect by changing the effect. This involves changing how the challenging situations and people in our lives effect us by choosing how we want to respond. It begins with the assumption that we are not responding to all the problematic situations in our life "on purpose." This means that we are not deliberately becoming stressed, frustrated, angry, overwhelmed, etc., and thus the first question we must ask ourselves is how would we like to respond, or what qualities and characteristics would we choose if we are responding more purposefully? When asked this question, most people choose qualities such as patience, confidence, compassion, integrity, etc. Once these are chosen, then the next step is to practice responding in this more deliberate fashion. In other words, we use traffic as an opportunity to practice responding with patience (or however we would like to be), family gatherings as an opportunity to practice responding with forgiveness, and/or seeing difficult people as frightened versus frightening, etc.

Because anything that is practiced (repeated over and over) will eventually become a habit, we will therefore eventually become skilled at responding in this more purposefully chosen manner, and this will change how life effects us. This is certainly better than continuing to be effected by life, however, as nice as this option is, we are still the effect, which leads us to the most powerful option in dealing with the natural law of cycles... number three... becoming the cause!

This third option is even more unorthodox than the first two and, thus, it is even more rare, however, let me give you my thoughts on why I believe this to be the most powerful way to deal with the natural law of cycles. As I mentioned, rather than advise you to change the cause or change the effect, I am suggesting that we flip the cycle and become the cause. This means that we first identify the best of who we are, or who we are at our best. Chances are this will look very similar to the purposeful qualities and characteristics identified in option two, however, rather than seeing these traits as a response to the challenging aspects of life, these qualities (patience, confidence, compassion, integrity, etc.) become what we carry into each scenario , almost as if the situation were a scene from a play and our mission was to first define our character, and then step on stage and be who we are.

I call this "becoming the cause" for two reasons. First, given that we have defined who we are in advance, and have identified our purpose as being this person, we will have "become the cause" (versus the effect) of our experience of life. Given the reactive nature of people (both individuals and groups) we will very likely begin to have a marked effect on those with whom we interact. Put another way, given that all human interaction is a dance of some sort... if we change our steps to those of clarity of purpose and confidence, others will be forced to change their steps as well.

Of course, this effect will vary from person to person depending on their perspective. Some will find these qualities very attractive probably because on some level they recognize that they themselves possess many of these characteristics and thus being around us brings out their best. Others, however, may be confused by someone who is so consistently "purposeful" (versus reactive) and thus may mistrust or even recoil from such a person. In fact, their confusion may at first be so unsettling that they may try to get us to return to the more familiar reactive stance that they know so well. The beauty of "becoming the cause," however, is that we are not invested in their reaction, which doesn't mean that we don't care, it just means that we don't require them to treat us with kindness to know that we are kind, or even to love us in order to feel lovable. Because we have defined ourselves on purpose, we know that we are a person of patience, confidence, compassion, integrity, etc., and however people react to us is good information. If in seeing someone be patient, kind, and confident, they become aware of how they can be impatient, unkind, and less than confident and thus feel uncomfortable, this is not a problem, but an opportunity for them to change. Regardless, however, we are clear about who we are and the qualities we want to bring to life.

The second reason I call this perspective "becoming the cause" is that when we have defined ourselves on purpose and are looking forward to bringing these characteristics to each situation, we can then be in the world, but not of it. This doesn't mean that we are not engaged in life, far from it. In fact, because we are not needing the world to be a certain way in order to be who we are, we can engage in each situation in a very profound manner. What this means is that because we have decided that our highest purpose is to be who we are, we are not caught up in the petty or even the problematic aspects of life... and this becomes our cause!

So, the real question is, what cause do we stand for and to what degree are we willing to make this our highest purpose? Is our banner one of habit, frustration, resentment, worry, and fear, or are we willing to define who we are on purpose, and make bringing this definition to life our cause? Interesting questions, don't you think? :-)

Stay tuned for how this philosophy can be brought into the world of business where we can realize the power and promise of living up to our greatest potential as individuals and as organizations. In the meantime, however, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for being a part of this ongoing dialogue. Your words of appreciation have meant so much to me and my business partner, Steve Butler, and helped motivate us to continue this work even in the lean times of today's economy:-) As I have mentioned, stay tuned for a new look and new focus in January, however, for now, here's wishing you and yours the happiest of holidays and a life of being the cause.

Take care and God bless, Dr. Bill