The magic of transformation

When I was a kid, my mother took me to a beautiful Walt Disney's movie: 'The Awakening Desert'. One of the scenes showed a huge cactus suddenly transformed into a flowering phenomena. I never forgot how, within seconds, all the buds emerged and turned into colorful, open flowers.

What I did not know, at that time, was that the scene was photographed in slow motion and was shown in fast motion. For me it still symbolizes how quickly something that represents rigidity and pain can be transformed into beauty.

For years I've tried to catch the moment when a flower opens and it's petals start to bloom, only to miss the exact moment again and again. It was suddenly there.

The same thing happens with human transformation. You can never pinpoint the exact moment when it occurs. You might remember what happened before or after it, but never the moment of transformation itself.

As you walk down the corridor at work, somebody says: "Wow, you look so open and gentle" after years of hearing that you are cold and distant. Or an event happens, that for years used to create fear and anxiety within, and suddenly you realize, you're almost not bothered with it.

Transformation happens in an instant. It is not a process. As it happens in the NOW we can never track it down. Therefore it is magic. Contrary to change, transformation is easy; as there is no effort involved; it just happens. Like the tree letting go of the dry leaf or the fruit ripening without struggle.

Transformation doesn't take anything from you. It just gives you another point of view. When you look different, you see what is already there, which you haven't seen before. It is, therefore, effortless.

Being a trainer and a coach and working with thousands of people, I had numerous opportunities to see what happens when people are willing to look at things in a different way, beyond conventional thinking and society conditioning.

A woman shared with me her pain as her husband was sleeping with her best friend. You could feel her pain of losing both a husband and a friend. She felt manipulated and victimized. She shared that her husband tells her that he loves her, and doesn't want to leave her and that her only complaint, before the affair, was that he always wanted sex more often than she did.

I asked her if she was burdened with overload from both home and work, would she have asked her friend to help her? "Of course" she said. "Then maybe your friend is doing you a favor, helping you to reduce the overload of work with your husband."

As I said it the woman burst out in laughter and said: "that's an interesting way of looking at it." As she said those words a relaxed smile replaced the painful expression on her face.

A man shared his fear of making mistakes and his need to prove that 'he knows it all.'
Recalling how it started he said: "I feel that I still have to prove to my teacher that I am not stupid."
"At that time, whose job was it to make sure that you know the right answers?" I asked him.
"Her job", came the answer.
"And if after her lesson, you still didn't know the right answers, who actually failed?"
He hesitated for a moment, struggling with the picture in his mind: "She did!"
"So how come you are the stupid one?"
The man looked up, smiled and it seemed as if he got a little bit taller.

If you have a life-issue that you would like to transform, e-mail to me and I'll do my best to give you a fresh point of view in one of the coming issues of Inspiration.

Article by: Vered (Tanmayo) Neta, trainer, coach and lecturer, specializes in relationships and women issues.
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