The LifeQuake Blog

I hate networking groups. I’m one of those who can easily get up in front of a room full of people and speak for a whole day on a topic. I shine on camera and love radio interviews, but put me in a room where I have to tell you from my chair inside the room in 30 seconds what I do as a therapist and I start to shake, literally.  I usually fold my hands in front of me (bad body language) so the crowd (who are all looking at me when I stand up to introduce myself) won’t notice the tremor.  When I’m talking about something I’m passionate about, I can talk for hours, such as “how to anticipate change is coming”. Talking about myself is a little more complicated.

My biggest problem is describing what I do in thirty seconds.

There are those who are hypnotherapists and what they do is easy to describe: they help people lose weight, quit smoking, or manage stress better. There are those who are career coaches and, well, that is pretty obvious. There are those who work strictly with relationship issues. And there are those who help people make big transitions in their lives.

And then there’s me. I do all of the above and a few other things like dream interpretation and guided imagery as well. On the credential level, I’m a licensed psychotherapist and sometimes going deep into the subconscious realms is appropriate. Sometimes, what is being called for is pragmatic problem solving, and I am also called in to work with CEOs occasionally to consult on their business. 

And just when I was getting the hang of describing all the many hats I wear, a new one appeared with the release of my first book: “Crisis Management Expert.” I have been working in the field of crisis intervention for 25 years and have given interviews to the media on this subject for awhile now, but it wasn’t something I announced. They just came to me when they needed me.

I liked it in the old days (the ancient 80’s) when it was enough of a credential being a psychotherapist and all I had to say was “ I help people overcome their fear of change and reduce the need for crisis as a motivator.” Heh, maybe that’s the sound bite. Just forget all the labels. Hmm-Thirty seconds may start to seem like a long time.

Dr. Toni Galardi has just released her first book, The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to thrive (not just survive) in These Times of Personal and Global Upheaval, which can be purchased through her website at http://www.LifeQuake.net.

It is 73 days until the inauguration.

What I find interesting about this election is that the key concept that both candidates campaigned on was who was going to bring change to America and yet we are a country that, for the most part, fears change.

Take a poll. Ask a dozen people on the street what feeling gets evoked when they think about making personal changes? Two will most probably say they get excited. Five will probably say they feel a low level of anxiety and then another five will admit to all out panic.

So what is at the bottom of this fear and how will it play out in the coming months?

For most of us, the fear of change involves the fear of loss. And, more specifically at this time, economic loss. In conversations with certain wealthy friends, most of whom voted for McCain, the fear is that their taxes will go up and the country will go red.

It is funny how the party that is associated with the color red is accusing the opposing party who they say are communist of ‘going red’. The color red has sure changed its interpretation in American politics. Red used to mean commie or socialist. Now it’s the blue people who are being accused of wanting a socialist state by the very people who refer to themselves as part of the red states.

We’re a very confused bunch here in America. But I digress.

Getting back to this fear of loss, I think what we most fear right now is the fear of the unknown. Anyone who has a brain in his head knows that one man cannot fix the economic crisis we are in. One man cannot stop climatic catastrophes. And one man cannot appropriate funds to fix the decaying and in some places dangerously decaying physical infrastructure of our country’s roads, dams, and bridges.

So we will resort to what we have always used to exact change: CRISIS. What we need to prepare for in America in the next 73 days is an ability to adapt to crisis-driven change. As the LifeQuakes unfold in the coming years, those who will thrive will have strong ‘emotional retrofitting’ to see opportunity where others see loss. Like a house that has appropriate retrofitting, in spite of the earth beneath it erupting, it can bend and adapt to the movement without being destroyed. It is my sincere hope that when my book comes out in early ’09, The LifeQuake Phenomenon: Your Definitive Roadmap Through Seismic Change, it can provide a useful tool box for building a mobile yet grounded inner foundation while we move toward the future on a road that is fraught with fault lines.

So how do the red and blue states come together to support effective change? Well, if you merge the two colors they become the color purple. Perhaps the first step in preparing for this next administration is to bring the color purple back in vogue. Milton Erickson, the psychologist who pioneered modern day hypnosis was color blind except for the color purple. Maybe, we all need to see the world through the prism of the color purple and develop some color blindness so that we do see each other as part of a whole, the Wholy Self called humanity.

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