People often ask me why this book is called The Churning. I tell them there are three reasons.
The first is the churning that is happening all around us: the changes that are happening in politics, the economy, society, technology, and of course in the environment. Together, these have created the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world that some people call the meta-crisis. This is the outer, physical churning we face.
The second reason is the inner, emotional churning that we can all experience as a result: the feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, loss, and even fear that can arise so easily when so much change is happening around us and which can make us feel churned about like a sock in a washing machine. This is our inner, psychological and emotional churning.
And the third kind of churning is the churning that turns cream into butter. Because change is nothing new: it has always been with us**. The only difference today is the scale of changes we are facing. But if we learn new skills and new tools we can learn to handle even this higher rate of change. And then we can start to use the challenges we face as opportunities: opportunities to become clearer about what matters most to us and more able to achieve those things. We can use the challenges we face as opportunities to churn ourselves from the ‘cream’ we are today into the ‘butter’ we most want to become.
This book is called The Churning because this word describes not only the problems we face but also the solution to those problems.
How much churning is currently happening in your outer world? How much inner churning is that creating in you and the people around you? Are you using this as an opportunity to churn yourself into the type of butter you most want to become?
(**The ancient Hindus described this same process in the legend of The Churning of the Milk Ocean.)
Adapted from Inner Leadership: tools for building inspiration in times of change.
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