Change Enthusiasm by Cassandra Worthy

Author:Cassandra Worthy [Cassandra Worthy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hay House
Published: 2021-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

WHEN OUR CIRCUMSTANCE FALLS OUTSIDE OF OUR CONTROL

Somewhere in yourself you have to realize—you are responsible for what happens to you. You cannot blame anybody for it.

— JAMES BALDWIN

When it was announced that my organization was being acquired and that my role wasn’t guaranteed, it would have been easy to complain that it was all happening to me. It would have been easy to blame leadership for being inept. It would have been easy to blame my manager for not being able to guarantee I would keep my position. But any reward from playing the blame game is fleeting and choosing to engage in it would have been unproductive toward long-term betterment. Instead I chose to view the acquisition as happening for me. I chose to consciously enroll in the growth opportunities being signaled. And trust me, it wasn’t easy. Trusting and embracing that stressful and challenging change happens for you rarely is.

One of the questions I’m met with often in my work is how to choose better when a change or disruption is so dire, so stressful, that the choice to get out of bed becomes increasingly more difficult with each passing day. When the best you can do in a day is get up, shower, and relocate to the couch. I know this feeling. Trust me. As I’ve shared in previous chapters, I’ve been there. These are the times when those signal emotions of change are blasting the loudest. When facing tremendous change or disruption, it’s easy to default to going through the motions to avoid actively experiencing the discomfort and pain of uncertainty. It’s easy to numb or ignore those signal emotions. But when we can focus on making intentional choices, we are empowered to use the magnitude of that emotional energy toward growth. To exemplify this, let’s reflect more on Brandon’s journey.

Though Brandon had a childhood filled with struggle and trauma, the most challenging year of his life was 2005. Brandon’s definition of success while growing up was simply not living in poverty. Success was the ability to eat what he wanted. Success was the ability to live where he wanted. Success was the ability to buy what he wanted. By 2005 he was assistant vice president of a bank, in other words the right-hand man to the president. He was earning a big salary that afforded him a comfortable living by any measure. In all respects he had made it. He had achieved his original notion of success. Then in 2005 all the following happened:

His mother passed away from liver cancer.

His sister passed away from sickle cell anemia at only 27 years old.

He discovered that his youngest daughter had cerebral palsy and permanent brain damage.

He lost his job and home to Hurricane Katrina and was washed out financially.

He was mad at God, mad at the world, mad at life, mad at everything and everybody. In that one year he experienced more loss and tragedy than in his entire lifetime combined up to that point. It devasted him.

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