When Dorothy found herself abruptly dumped in Oz, her first thought was “How do I get back home?” She pleaded with everyone around her, believing they possessed some special power to make this happen. But in the end, Dorothy understood she — and she alone — had the ability to change her situation.

I was reminded of this yesterday listening to a friend talk about change. Powerful change. The kind that picks up your life and redirects it like a tornado picking up a car and setting it down on an entirely different freeway miles away.

And while it may be triggered by an external event, transformational change always starts from within, whispered into consciousness by that quiet voice that tells you it’s time to grow, go to the next level, live your purpose.

The right path doesn’t necessarily equal the easy route. Sometimes the right thing to do is the most terrifying option. It’s like you’re at the door to the next phase of your life, and your heart is telling you “Walk through,” but your head is conjuring up all manner of monsters and misery on the other side.

We all face these doors. They might be the “leaving an unfulfilling job” door, or “letting go of a bad habit” door or “leaving an abusive relationship” door.

Some people listen to their heart, get the message the first time, turn the door knob and move through.

Some of us walk up to the door, knowing it’s the right thing to do, but then listen to the misguidance from our small self who wants nothing to do with change. So, we move on and ignore the pull.

But if the change is necessary to our soul’s growth, and we continue to avoid the door, the Universe will drop-kick us there until we get the message.

The obvious question is why do we resist? One reason is because given the choice between certainty (or the familiar) and uncertainty (change), most of us will choose certainty – even if that means continuing to muck around in a painful situation and rationalize why it’s safer to stay there.

But a more empowering question is how do we get ourselves to open the door and walk through? I think the answer there is faith and trust – that no matter what happens, we’ll get through it. And at least from my experience, life has always been extraordinarily better on the other side. Always.

I wrote the following poem when I was confronted one of life’s doors of change recently. (And yes, I stepped through – this blog was the result.)

Entering the Arena

I am at the arena door.
I have come a long way to get here
I’ve studied every route, every entrance and exit
What to wear and how to present myself.

I hear the howling and the roar from inside
Then the silence and I am afraid.

Perhaps I should come back another day.
Another year.
Another decade.

Yet something pulls me through
And inside, there are no lions waiting for me
Just kittens playing
And the whole world applauding.

Everyone has their own inner critic committee – the group that holds wild parties in your head, starts food fights and generally tries to unseat your serenity and centeredness.

Here’s my cast of characters, who may have made guest appearances in your head as well:

The Judge – The leader of this band of critics, she revels in pointing out my latest wrinkle (literal or figurative), flaw or faux-pas. Her favorite words are should and shouldn’t, and she’s quick to cite case-law (aka past transgressions) as irrefutable evidence of unworthiness.

The Skeptic – Always quick to dose my dreams with doubt: “Are you sure you can do that?” “You’ve never done that before.” “You’re not qualified.”

The Perfectionist – A study in two extremes – either inaction (“You hadn’t better try this because you won’t be good at it”) or perpetual action (“Just a little more tweaking and it will be done. Oh wait, here’s another spot you missed.”). Both are aimed at acquiring external approval.

The Drama Queen — Always ready to give an Oscar-award winning performance on making Mt. Fuji out of a speed bump.

The Salesman – A pushy dude who’s quick to shove me into acting on whatever fearful thought pops up. “If you don’t act NOW, the price will triple tomorrow.”

The Jackhammer – He just loves noise and making negative thoughts fly around like chunks of cement and rebar. When he and the flying monkeys get together, well, it’s just nasty.

So what do you do when they decide to hold an impromptu meeting or food fight? The first thought that comes to mind is to bind and gag them, heave them into a really dark part of your psyche, and pretend they’re not there.

Unfortunately, they’ll find a way to escape. It may not be tomorrow, or next week. But one day, when you’re puttering around peacefully, they’ll hold a jailbreak. And like any negative thought, they will have grown stronger in the darkness of denial.

New York Times best-selling author Pam Grout says a negative thought is “temporary until you decide to invite it in for martinis and offer to make up the guest bedroom.”

So today, I try to listen to the committee’s input (up to a point, but not including martinis and the guest room). And I look for the lesson. If the Perfectionist has me running in circles, I need to become aware and remind myself that I’m perfectly enough just as I am. If the Drama Queen rants about the sky falling, I can remember to accept a situation for what it is – not more or less. If the Skeptic beleaguers me about not being qualified to write a blog, I can remind her that because I am the only Me on the planet, no one else has the exact same perspective and experiences.

Now I’m off to a meeting of the Fan Club Committee. They’re a lot more fun.

I’m sure at some point someone will land on this blog hoping to find a good deal on Manolo Blahniks. (And it’s ironic that this blog came to be named after shoes, because I couldn’t be any less interested in footwear. I dislike buying shoes, and have four basic pair that last me all year long.) But the mental footwear – those ruby slippers and red shoes – is another story.

The inspiration for this comes from my sister-in-law, who, after reading the blog, came up with a list of her red shoes (which she called her danger zone) and her ruby slippers (life enjoyment). Thank you Dawn!

So in no particular order, here are a couple pairs of red shoes and ruby slippers from my cerebral closet:

Red shoes:

• Self-criticism and judgment: This is the perpetual feeling of never-enoughness. The inner critics, while not as mouthy as they used to be, are still alive and well and ready with a nasty barb anytime I am less than perfect. As my sister-in-law says, this behavior is flat-out destructive. Sometimes the only thing that works is to internally respond to the critics: “I hear you, but I don’t agree with you.”
• Control, control, control: Wanting to control everything and everyone is a fear-based behavior, that stems from my strong need for certainty and safety. But the harder I try to control people and events, the more internal chaos I create. I’ve learned you will never gain control until you lose the need to have it. So I try to LET GO and remind myself that everyone is on their own path. Plus, the last time I checked, I wasn’t General Manager of the Universe.

Ruby slippers:

• Listening to my intuition: This sixth sense, which I feel in my solar plexus area, has never steered me wrong. That doesn’t mean it points me down the easy path – in fact some of the decisions I’ve had to make were gut-wrenchingly difficult – but when I follow my intuition, everything always works out.
• Allow and release: As uncomfortable as our thoughts and emotions can be, they can’t hurt us. So when I feel a wave of anxiety or resentment or other strong emotion, I try to just allow it to be, then release it by imagining I’m blowing dandelion fluff into the wind.

So what’s in your closet?

 

 

 

A zebra is grazing in a small cove. Suddenly, she hears the almost imperceptible rustle of a leaf, sniffs the faintest whiff of danger and goes on high alert. Her finely tuned fight or flight instinct kicks in, and she starts running as a lion slinks out of the bushes and begins the pursuit.

Thankfully, our zebra escapes, and minutes later, she is back in stasis, heart rate lowered, grazing in a new field. The zebra doesn’t consciously have to “let go” of her stressful experience. She just does.

We, on the other hand, will continue to spend countless hours in a conversation with ourselves about what happened. We return to the scene of the stressor, as if we could affect another outcome or go back and this time, say the clever line we thought of afterward.

Had I been that zebra, my internal conversation wouldn’t have subsided when the lion stopped the chase. It would have escalated: “I knew I shouldn’t have been eating in that area – my mother warned me about that neighborhood. Boy, that lion got real close. I need to work out more. I almost didn’t make it. What if I had died? Is there a zebra heaven? Maybe I need a bucket list. What if I see another lion tomorrow? OMG these horizontal stripes make my butt look fat. I need to go on a diet. Is that something in the bush? I think I maybe should just find a cave and stay there where I’m safe.”

The Buddhists have a term for this incessant internal chatter: Monkey mind. And there are moments when my mind feels like it has flying monkeys in it, those frightening beasts who did the Wicked Witch of the West’s bidding.

The key I’m learning is not to fight the “flying monkeys,” but to try to just become aware and observe – watch my thoughts swirl, watch my mind reach into the past and fumble into the future. If I don’t fight or latch onto the thoughts or emotions, they pass of their own accord.

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, who wrote My Stroke of Insight, explains the process this way: “When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90 second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop. Something happens in the external world and chemicals are flushed through your body which puts it on full alert. For those chemicals to totally flush out of the body it takes less than 90 seconds.

“This means that for 90 seconds you can watch the process happening, you can feel it happening, and then you can watch it go away. After that, if you continue to feel fear, anger, and so on, you need to look at the thoughts that you’re thinking – that are re-stimulating the circuitry – that is resulting in you having this physiological response over and over again.”

We don’t like to hear that our anger, or frustration, envy, resentment and distress are within our control. It’s much easier (and less upsetting for the ego) to blame someone else. But in the end, as Bolte Taylor says, after 90 seconds, it’s a good bet we’re the ones stoking the stress fires.

So the old adage about counting to 10 was useful, but neuroscience shows us that counting to 90 is a whole lot better.