The Six Stages of Transformation​
In Self, Relationships and Community
The key to experiencing a breakthrough is transformation. I have found that there are six stages to any transformation process within an individual, a relationship, a community or an entire system or organisation.
The first stage is Dissonance. If you take two outputs, and they do not match each other in their energy, this is dissonance. It is common throughout the universe and it happens whenever two or more things are not in harmony, not in synchronisation. In a relationship, if you are aware, you can feel dissonance when it arrives and it is always uncomfortable. Many relationships persist in dissonance with people just reacting to it and never becoming transformed, just going round and round in a loop. It can be the same with communities, governments and countries.
It all begins with dissonance.
Dissonance is there to tell us something. It is the beginning of a process, and a very magical journey. So it is to be respected, perhaps also even welcomed, in our hearts when we feel it. Dissonance also applies to us as individuals. We can have days when we feel dissonant, when there is something in the stellar field, something in the weather patterns or just something out there that feels dissonant.
Do you remember the physics lesson where you drop two different things into a wave tank, and then you watch the waves coming together and see them colliding and creating an interference frequency? Eventually the patterns begin to harmonise, and it is the same with us. So dissonance is really important as the baseline of all transformation, all creative processes, of evolution itself. It all begins with dissonance.
Dissonance creates feedback.
The second stage is Feedback. When you go to a gig or a performance, somebody may be working with the audio and microphones, and suddenly you get a deafening burst of feedback. You get that really loud, grating sound which is the feedback that is coming out of the dissonance. First comes the dissonance, and then the feedback arrives out of it. And the dissonance can be subtle, so unless you have a finely-tuned awareness, for example, through being a deep meditator, it can be that you are not aware of the dissonance until there is feedback. Dissonance is felt deeply within us and if you are busy about your life, you may not even notice it because you are used to it. Perhaps you are having a bad day and are just ploughing on with things. So, unless you pause, the dissonance will probably go unnoticed. Pausing allows you to tune in and recognise when there is something deeply uncomfortable inside that you need to pay attention to.
In any system or relationship, dissonance creates feedback, which might, for example, be anger erupting out of the dissonance. The relationship or the system then alerts itself to the dissonance and this can be positive or negative, it just depends. You can even look at a negative and turn it into a positive. A burst of anger or irritation in a relationship, or someone losing their cool within a community is a valuable piece of feedback, an alert that is saying there is some dissonance at the core. Even if that person or that behaviour is very challenging, take that feedback on board. It is saying, ‘Listen here, there is some dissonance. There is a process under way which is probably going to be uncomfortable. But we need to follow it and listen to it.’
Assimilation is when the alchemy starts to occur.
Healthy feedback is when you can say, ‘I sense dissonance,’ and you do not blame it on anyone. In the negative, shadow state the feedback gets transferred as blame, in the process psychologists call ‘transference’.
You transfer the blame of the feedback onto the other person instead of realising that it is just dissonance in the field, and isn’t about that person necessarily. It is something passing through the relationship, the individual, the body, the community or the organisation. And that does not mean that suddenly that person who is producing the feedback is very important, or that they are necessarily right. They are just an aspect of the dissonance of the whole. It also does not mean that there is anything ‘wrong’ with them. It is likely they just have their own personal wounding and they need to be responsible for that. One needs to be responsible for one’s feedback. You can give positive feedback and say, ‘This isn’t working, I didn’t like this… I felt like this…’ You own the feedback inside yourself but you offer it with respect and courtesy, and with no blame. That is healthy feedback.
You can feel the darkness, but you can also see a glimpse of light.
People who are grounded are very good in chaos zones because they can sit within the conflict, look at it, accept it and embrace it. Conflict can be very beneficial, and it can be very creative if it is approached in that way.
Assimilation is a really important phase. The body has to assimilate the information of the transformation, and this can go on for some time. In a relationship, the body of each person and the body of the relationship and its chemistry will make the transformation. If each individual in a relationship is able to maintain courtesy, the transformation may well occur in a very healthy way and much more swiftly. Whereas, if they are fighting and stuck in a feedback loop, the assimilation does not really occur, at least not in a healthy way. Assimilation is different from feedback, because feedback is just the first awareness of dissonance, while assimilation is a complex, internal process.
The fourth phase is called Sharing, which comes out of assimilation like a beam of light. Sharing is about authenticity and sharing authentically how you feel, and you have to go through some assimilation in order to share clearly.
On an individual level, sharing is really about you seeing for the first time what is happening in your life and being able to share it with another person who you trust or love. So speak it, share it, draw it or dance it. Find some way to externalise it so that you can bring it out of yourself and share it. Something needs to emerge from the very internal process of assimilation.
In a relationship the sharing is a critical phase because you have to share without apportioning blame, ‘This makes me feel…’ or ‘I feel…’ Often in the sharing phase a lot of emotion comes out but it is not in the reactive, feedback stage any more, as it has been processed already.
Speak it, share it, draw it or dance it.
After some time has passed, the partners in the relationship have had some time to reflect. Perhaps they have been apart and come back together, and then, without being co-dependent, they find they can share in an authentic way.
When sharing in a group or community, it is essential that the sharing is listened to. It is as simple as that. There do not have to be answers. There just has to be the sharing, so that the voices, the complaints, criticisms, hurt, anger, love, all of it, can come out. Everyone has a different view, so all the sharing is of great value, and it needs to come out and be heard.
The fifth stage is called Crystallisation, or Distillation. It is when out of the sharing, suddenly you come to the moment, the realisation within. ‘I have gone through this process. I have assimilated, I have shared and I have nothing left I need to put out there.’ You realise that you have learned what you needed to learn, and you are done. Everyone is done and it is almost the end. You have gone through the stages, you have shared and externalised it, and suddenly you understand, ‘Aha, now I know what this experience has really been for! I’ve unlocked the purpose in this suffering, the higher purpose.’ It is wonderful.
Gratitude.
The sixth and final stage of Transformation is Gratitude. This is the afterglow, because having distilled the lesson, you feel a release. You have moved from dissonance to gratitude. Now, you are suddenly grateful for the dissonance and you think, ‘Wow, what a journey!’ and feel that it is done. That phase, that lila, that drama, whatever it was or how big it was, whatever crisis that you went through, you now understand it and have let go and moved on. You are stronger for it and feel grateful for the whole process and journey of it.
In a relationship it is the same. What often happens is that love blossoms at that point. Appreciation and respect grow between the pair. They look at each other and feel the love come back, having gone through a phase of no-love and confusion, chaos and assimilation. The depth of gratitude for staying the course can be extraordinary. Their hearts start to beat in harmony again, and they can look the other person in the eyes and say, ‘I’m so grateful that you did this or said that or that you stayed with me.’ Then the transformation is complete.
In a community, this is beautiful because a mutual appreciation has come about. The sense of gratitude is felt throughout the community because something has been distilled collectively, as well as each individual distilling things on a personal level. There is a rush of gratitude and a kind of uplift, as the community reaches a level of coherence that was not there before.
All systems, individuals and relationships go through these phases, beginning with a little spark of dissonance. Then the feedback comes and is assimilated through that process of alchemy. There needs to be a sharing of authentic voices, then the distillation and, finally, the gratitude. During one of these processes, in which we all are for most of the time, it is really important to realise that there is a beginning, a middle and an end. You do not have to know exactly where you are, although it is usually pretty clear which phase you are in. It can be very encouraging to identify where you are in the process because it helps you commit to the process through to the end. If you give up, then you never get to the gratitude or the distillation and you will miss the gift of the transformation.
