Rebooting: The art of starting over
I’m sitting here waiting for my laptop to restart. I’ve just rebooted it, because some new updates need to be installed. Clearly something on this machine wasn’t fit for what lies ahead of it today and tomorrow. It is taking its time and I’m impatient. I thought a quick flick of a switch and all would be fixed, but the progress-bar is travelling at a snail’s pace.
Human transformation is a cry for some new updates. How we had been living, feeling, behaving, deciding, mindsets, attitudes, habits, are not working any more. Either they have brought us to a halt, or causing us pain we can’t ignore, or are clearly not fulfilling our potential in some way.
The idea of rebooting ourselves is not a new concept, in the religious and philosophical history of teaching about human transformation. In the past two thousand years, since the birth of Christianity, the answer to, “how can I change my life?”, has been, “You can’t. You have to be born again, or born from outside of your own resources”. In the past century, one of the best-known models of transformation, the 12 Step Programme of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), would answer the same question, “how can I change my life?”, with the same kind of answer, “You can’t. You are powerless to change yourself. You need a resource from beyond yourself” (Steps 1 & 2)
And this is where the challenge of change begins. Every message in our generation starts with the cry, “You can, you can, you can….. you’re amazing!! You have all the resources and potential inside of you. Just release what’s in there. Just search for the hero inside yourself”.
Of course, all of this is true. It just isn’t the whole truth. It is a necessary correction to centuries of, “you can’t”, but it is an over correction. Why? Because all human transformation, even in the year 2020, can only begin when I acknowledge my own resources, creativity, abilities – yes, all of these, BUT, also acknowledge my inability and my powerlessness.
Any psychotherapist will tell you that that death and resurrection are hardwired into the human transformation process. It’s a great mistake to dismiss AA as irrelevant for the majority of us (as we think we don’t have a drinking problem), because we are all addicts of some kind. Maybe not the more visible substance abuses, but the other ones, around craving a buzz, being in control, overworking, over achieving, anger, anxiety, self-pity, self-obsession…. whatever it is that you depend on to keep you anaesthetised and functioning. We’ve all got our sh*t; we’ve all got our darker, shadow and powerless side. No one has gone through a process of transformation, who didn’t start at that most painful of place, which admits “something just isn’t working…. I’ve tried everything….. I cannot find the power switch”.
Only at this point can the reboot happen. The key point about a reboot is that it is not simply a “refresh”, it’s a full-scale halt, it’s a tree across the road, something has ended. If life is about having some power, then the power has gone out of some aspect of our lives. Reboot is a new journey, a process of discovery to travel along.
Put aside any religious beliefs you may or may not have and indulge me the metaphor of being “born again”. Those words could have opened up generations of people to the understanding of how they could change, be transformed, but somehow the words were hijacked and this shut the door for many. Christianity took the wise words of Jesus and explained them to people as an event. Being “born again” was turned into “pray a prayer”. Do this one act and all will be ok, eternally ok. But birth is not a simple one-click, or one-pray event and so rebirth, or reboot, is not an event – it’s a messy, difficult, process, over time. (the installation-progress bar on my lap top is still not there yet! Thank heavens for pen and paper).
Rebirth that leads to transformation, is a process.
Birth begins at conception. Even conception is a complex, creative, process, hidden from view. Then there’s the process of growth, still happening unseen, but fed and nurtured. Then there are the early signs of movement, the early contractions, which increase over time. Before the actual delivery of this new being, there are deep pains that feel closer to the experience of death, than giving life. And then there it is, not a new life, because it has been a growing life for some time already, but is now visible. Then this new baby has to learn everything for the first time – learn to breath in a new way, learn to see, learn to feed, learn to walk, learn how to calibrate its sense of self, its identity and finally it has a to find a meaningful place in the world. Birth is a long process, not an event. Human transformation; a rebirth, a reboot, is exactly like this. It takes its time and it shares all of the complex and varied experiences of a physical birth.
In a consumer driven world where, “I want”, expects instant gratification, transformation is an alien experience for many. When we encounter dimensions of our own lives that we know need to change, whether it’s becoming less driven or selfish, becoming less anxious or angry, controlling or self-obsessed, we want the fast answer – read the book, recite the mantra, exchange the relationship, pray the prayer.
But true transformation is a process, a tough process over a period of time – but it’s the process that is the rebirth. It’s wonderfully captured in the title of one the books on my study shelf, Character Transformation, reads the title, but the subtitle captures the true wisdom – The hard work miracle. Transformation a miracle? Of course, it always feels just like a miracle, but it’s a miracle born of hard work. It’s an intentional process, over time, that demands all, because it is going to change all – that’s the point of transformation.