Let it Burn: How to Ignite Change

For those of you who have been with me for awhile, you know that all of my podcasts use to be inspired by music and I still think that’s where some of my best ideas come from.

Music helps me feel… feelings. I know that sounds weird to some people and someday soon I’ll be talking about interoception and alexithymia but today is not that day. 

Today I found a song that changed what this podcast was going to be about - Let it Burn by Shaboozey. 10/10 recommend giving it a listen on repeat for several hours which is what I did as I drove and thought about the rollercoaster this past couple of weeks has been for myself and an endless number of clients, friends, and even family.

Don’t worry if you’re listening to this in the future, everything I’m going to say is relevant regardless of when you listen. 

So grab your matches y’all, it’s bonfire time.

Firefighter Training

To be clear, I’m going to be talking about change which I’m conceptualizing as fire. 

Alrighty. So. 

People aren’t actually afraid of change. I know they think they are but what they’re really afraid of (at least most of the time) is that they can’t trust themselves to navigate the change. 

If you don’t trust yourself to handle anything that comes up, of course you’re going to be afraid all of the time and never want anything to change. That totally makes sense. 

I’ve had two types of conversations this week. The first were with people who were afraid of the fire and the second were with the pyros. 

Regardless of which camp you happen to be in, change is inevitable. 

There’s the change we have no control over - death, natural disasters, other people’s actions, and all of the other things that show up like circumstances in our lives.

Then there’s the change that we control. We get to decide if we want to make great big scary changes in our lives but most people don’t make that choice because they’re afraid of the fire and are only willing to engage with it in the role of firefighter. 

You know the type, right? They adapt when life forces them to. I’m a big fan of being a firefighter. It’s important to have faith that if a fire is coming your way that you know exactly what to do to keep yourself safe. These are the people who don’t initiate change directly but they feel confident that if something unexpected happens that they’ll figure out how to proceed. 

Some people don’t even have that.

There are a lot of people who live in a perpetual state of fear that the fire will consume them if a firefighter doesn’t come to rescue them. They fear change because they don’t trust themselves to deal with whatever they’re faced with. They hope someone will figure it out for them or they believe the changes would be the end of them. 

If this is where you are, the goal is to become a firefighter first. 

Your main task as a firefighter is building up your resiliency. The book Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You by Brad Stulberg is an excellent resource for this. It offers insights and strategies to help you not only cope with but to actually harness changes for personal growth and improved resilience. The questions and exercises will help you learn how to develop a proactive and adaptable approach to life's inevitable changes, increasing your ability to navigate future changes with confidence and purpose.

You can also do this work with a life coach or therapist depending on your circumstances.

If you want a place to get started right away I have some exercises for you. 

Simulation Drills

Just like firefighters train by simulating real-life fire scenarios, you can practice handling small, manageable changes or disruptions in a controlled setting. This could involve role-playing difficult conversations with a friend or loved one, discussing how you want to handle situations with a coach, or trying new activities that push you out of your comfort zone, like improvisational theater or a spontaneous day trip without a planned itinerary.. Regularly putting yourself in these "simulated" situations can build your confidence and quick thinking needed to manage bigger changes.

Develop a Fire Kit

Firefighters always have their tools ready and you can develop a personal "fire kit" of skills and resources. This kit could include stress management techniques, a strong support network, financial safety nets, or professional guidance such as coaches or mentors. Make a list of everything you have at your disposal to help you when unexpected changes pop up. Knowing these tools are available to you can boost your confidence that you can navigate unexpected changes successfully. 

Post-Incident Reviews 

After any significant change, conducting a review similar to how firefighters debrief post-operation can be useful. Assess what went well, what could be improved, and how the situation was handled. This reflection process not only provides valuable insights for future incidents but also reinforces your belief that you can learn and grow from each experience. If this feels too hard to do alone, you can work with a coach who can help you work through the process objectively.

Once you have fighting fires down, then maybe it’s time to start lighting them. 

Grab the Matches

Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting anything drastic. I’m talking about romantic candles, a cozy fire in a fireplace, or roasting marshmallows next to a warm campfire. 

That sounds nice, right?

Think of the romantic candles as small changes that enhance your daily life or deepen relationships. For example, starting a new evening routine with a partner, like reading together, date night, or practicing meditation.

Fireplace changes might be things that make your home more comfortable and cozy like redecorating a room, adopting a pet, or establishing game night.

Campfire changes might be something that involves your friends and community like movie night with friends, going to a new restaurant, or creating a community garden.

All of these are changes that can be implemented to help you become more comfortable with the concept. 

A really great resource for small changes that can make a big impact over time is the book Atomic Habits. It offers a systematic framework for understanding the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results, showing you how to build habits in small, manageable steps. This approach makes it easier to integrate meaningful changes into your life without feeling overwhelmed.

I’m not going to spend too much time here because I want to talk about controlled burns and forge fires and the kinds of fires that can be seen for miles like signal fires and the fires in lighthouses. 

Start a Fire

These are the types of changes that can be way scarier and take a lot more effort to initiate and then follow through on because it requires becoming a new version of yourself in the process because you’re never going to get a brand new result by taking the same old actions.

To take new actions you have to be willing to think new thoughts and to do either of those is crazy uncomfortable because doing what is familiar feels safe even if it’s making you miserable. Weird but true. 

That’s why people continue to stay in abusive relationships, idealize old flames, engage with family members they can’t stand, stay in jobs that are sucking the life out of them, and eat cookies every night while wishing they could run a marathon.

It’s also why people stay in relationships that are comfortable but not growth oriented, continue family rituals that don’t spark joy, stay in jobs that aren’t fulfilling, and mindlessly move through their days on autopilot.

I get it. Self reflection, managing your mind, and changing your life is so freaking hard.

It doesn’t help that your brain evolved to keep you in stasis so that you didn’t accidentally eat toxic berries or get lost in the wilderness and that society has further trained it to accept what is or is not possible for you based on what is best for whoever benefits from you believing that. And believe me, if someone says something is impossible for you either implicitly or explicitly it’s because they benefit from you not changing.  

So your brain will lie to you and tell you that you could never write that book, find a partner who will treat you well, run a marathon,  make a million dollars, or go back to school for the PhD because doing the big thing requires an extraordinary amount of change in both the way you think and the actions you’re willing to take which freaks the primitive part of your brain out. Add to that the fact that society has told you that your job is to do what is expected of you by your family, boss, country, church, or whoever rather than doing what you actually want to do. 

If we’re being really honest, we’ve all been conditioned to think it’s bad to even think about what we want because that’s selfish. I’m going to constrain the focus of this podcast and not go on a little rant about the subjective righteousness of being selfless and the subjective sin of being selfish - for now. 

But this is why when faced with doing something they’ve never done before, people will often say they don’t want to disappoint their family, spouse, church etc or that they could never do that because they’d feel too selfish.

Which brings me back to the point that it is absolutely hard to create massive change in your life, regardless of what that change is. 

I get it.

I really do, because in addition to all of the above “normal” reasons for not liking change I have a brain that is further hardwired to resist and fear change and one which takes longer to process some types of information like emotions. So I can stay stuck in situations for more than a hot minute. Zero judgment at all.

But here’s the thing. 

I know that about myself just like I know that change is hard for humans as a baseline.

That’s why I actively study psychology, philosophy, and astrology to understand my brain and my patterns and cycles better. It’s why I’m constantly learning new things. It’s like the book 1984 - if you don’t have a word that describes an abstract concept then you’re unlikely to have thoughts about that concept. For example, freedom. It’s impossible to know something is a possibility if you don’t even know there is a word for that possibility.

There were times in my life that I had no idea it was possible for a woman to make six figures, to be treated well, to be able to sleep without being afraid, or to be prioritized by myself or anyone else. I became aware of those possibilities because someone else gave me the language for them so that I could even ask myself if it was something I wanted for myself.

And that’s why the first step to creating a life you adore is being willing to risk the one you currently endure by asking yourself - “What do I want?”

Yes, your options will be limited by the possibilities that you’re aware of but it’s still a great place to start - and I have a book that will help. The title is Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. It will guide you through a process of self-discovery using design thinking principles to help you create a clearer vision of what you truly want from your life, offering practical strategies to achieve it. It’s one of my favorite books for people who really don’t know what they want.

Once you’ve established that you do in fact want a fire, it’s time to let it burn.

Let it Burn

Most people worry that I’m talking about a raging wildfire when I get all fired up and talk about burning it all down, but I’m actually talking about a controlled burn. 

This is my favorite kind of fire. But if I’m honest, it takes me awhile to get to the controlled burn every time because it’s scary. 

When you’re ready for a truly new way of existing in the world it means you’re going to have to burn down the old version of your life and there’s no guarantee that the new life you’ll have is going to feel better than the one you’re in now.

The question is, why does that matter?

You also don’t have a guarantee that this version of your life will feel better than the potential one. Heck, you don’t even have a guarantee that the version of your life that you’re in will continue on uninterrupted and provide you with the current level of comfort you have. Lightning could start that fire for you and burn it all down anyway.  

In fact, we can be absolutely sure that it is not going to remain the same forever because life is change. If you need a refresher on that, I recommend The Lion King. 

For those of you who didn’t spend years learning about fires from the actual Smokey Bear, I want to explain why controlled burns are very beneficial. 

A controlled burn does a lot of really important things. It reduces fuel that could feed wildfires, helps to control pests and disease, and helps to make the ecosystem healthier. There are some plants that are fire-dependent and it’s only when there is a fire that the seeds are released. Out of the ashes and all that. 

So, how do you know you’re ready to start a controlled burn.

One of my mentors always says only to make a change when you love your reasons for making it and you can do it from a place of love. That doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it or that it can’t feel scary or sad. 

That’s my entire rulebook for deciding if I’m ready to make a huge change in my life like ending a situationship, starting a business, leaving a job, or really anything else. 

• Do I love my reason for this?
• This obviously means I have to KNOW my reason which requires far more work than most people are willing to admit.
• Am I making this change from a place of love?
• The place of love can be for yourself but ultimately, if the change is going to involve others I also get myself to a place of love for them as well. However, the people who are affected by the change may not feel loved because their feelings are controlled by their thoughts, not yours. And that’s ok. 

The thing about a controlled burn is that to the outside it can seem sudden and chaotic and dangerous to the people who did not spend all the time plotting out the fire breaks and making sure the fire suppression teams were in place. To the people in your life, it might look like you’re starting a wildfire that is going to destroy them and everything they love. 

Of course, some of them are going to try to fight your fire, run away, or beg you to save them from the flames of the change you’re igniting.

But it’s not your job to save them. It’s not your job to make it easy for them when change is occurring. It’s ok if it is difficult for the people in your life and to navigate it they need to develop firefighting skills for themselves.

Your job is to make sure the controlled burn goes forward. You made the decision to change your life and letting other people’s fear or opinions derail you will either slow the change or halt it altogether. And we certainly don’t want that. 

The Danger of Wildfires

I think it’s important to note that wildfires are dangerous and not the same as a controlled burn. 

I think of wildfires as those choices we make to radically change something when we are not managing our minds. For some people that looks like making a change out of anger, depression, or rebellion - because no one is out there thinking they just can’t be bothered to manage their mind and want to actively do something reckless. 

One of the ways to know it’s a wildfire and not a controlled burn is your sense of urgency. Do you feel like it has to be done as fast as humanly possible and that feeling of certainty comes on suddenly? 

You’re probably about to start a wildfire or an impulsive change based on emotions that were created from unintentional thoughts or from not taking full ownership of your feelings. 

Everyone does this at some point and some people seem to do it all the time. But coaching, therapy, and implementing Stoic philosophy into your life can all help you start fewer wildfires.

Next Year, in Aries

I started this by talking about the recent astrological weather and now I want to loop back. A lot of the sparks that have been flying around are the result of the eclipses in Libra and Aries along with the presence of Venus (who indicates love and desire among other things) and Mercury retrograde also hanging out in Aries.

We have a few more eclipses on this axis that will probably spark some more changes, or at least the desire for more changes. 

But that’s just the beginning.

Next year we have not only an Aries eclipse but also Venus and Mercury retrograde in Aries at the same time followed immediately by both Neptune and Saturn moving into Aries. I promise you, change is coming. 

I recommend some controlled burns so the wildfires don’t take over.  

If you want to learn more about Venus, eclipses, intentional and unintentional thoughts and how to create massive change within your own life, I invite you to become a Crusader. Visit www.wickedveracity.com/crusade to learn more and to join us. 

Until next time, my wish for you is a spark of hope that ignites the flames of change. -Robin

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