Monday, November 24, 2014

Change Management through Mass media


To survive in our fast-developing world and adapt to ever-changing technology, we have to be willing to change. Life itself is about change, continually evolving for adaptation. However, though nature has its laws to ensure the survival of the fittest, man’s life-span cannot wait that long! We change as a natural process, as we grow from infants to adolescence, to adulthood and old age. With consciousness and free will, man can give this change, a direction. It is, through conscious decisión-making, that we make of ‘change’, a ‘transformation’.
Given our multi-tiered nature, there are physical, emotional, rational and transpersonal (spiritual) factors involved in change. To control the way we change we must first become aware of these  multi-variate agents , as we play out our roles as individuals, as couples, as families, as communities and as society as a whole. Televised ‘reality shows’ are one way of associating ‘real-life’ with our own reality, identifying what we see with what we are living. It allows us to see in others, what we sometimes fail to see in ourselves. The process of unfolding from the safety of our living-room, introjecting awareness and projecting what we feel, on to what we see, is the first step towards developing consciousness through self-awareness and self-observation.
Identifying self in others as they live out our same life-situations, is the basic principle that sustains the television program “Hermosa Esperanza”, as it follows five reality-shows unfolding everyday-life in five different families, representing life in lower and middle class, Mexico City. The synergy between TELEVISA’s state of the art technology and Nestlé’s desire to change harmful eating habits among the Mexican population, make this program one of its kind. Its impact on behavioral change follows strategic steps in change-management, bridging the gap between the living condition AS IS, and change patterns that will determine conditions TO BE. Thus, mass media becomes an invaluable tool for change to become conscious, and transform our immediate reality.
Basic steps include:
1.       Develop self-awareness to observe yourself acting and reacting in daily life.
2.       Identify a problem affecting you.
3.       Pin-point  a direct cause.
4.       Set your target for change.
5.       Analyze the steps required for it.
6.       Decide to change.
7.       Commit to self-discipline.
8.       Be constant.
9.       Be willing to sacrifice and let go of ‘who you were, to give way to who you will ‘become’.
10.   Trust and open up to unforeseen novel conditions.
These basic principles set the guidelines followed during the pilot transmission of the one-hour  reality- show “Hermosa Esperanza”, transmitted weekly prime time, throughout Mexico. There is no script but life itself; nothing to hold on to except the hope for change; nothing to move you but the will to say YES to change.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

How can we love beyond common sense?


Love is a mystery. It cannot be explained or rationalized. It does not obey reason, logic, cause or effect. It cannot be controlled or directed. Love IS.
Being so, of course it directly dethrones Ego-self.  ‘What do you mean I did not create or destroy love from free-will? What do you mean that love is an external force that does not depend on what I say or do?
My late husband and I met half way between a falling angel and a rising ape (I needn´t say who was who!). We had a totally different understanding of life and love. Where I was always yearning with an instinctive longing for fulfillment from Love at a higher realm, he was proudly bragging the love he could generate. One lived an ethereal reality, while the other was earth-bound and totally physical.
Those who identify with the capacity to see beyond what the eyes perceive,  sense a reality yet un-manifest, understanding Love as absolute. Those who limit reality to tangible truths, proved by deeds, need bodies to love.
Of course, experience integrates multiple realms of: a physical, psychological, rational and spiritual nature. Love encompasses all. It cannot be fragmented, though our limited perception distorts that subjective understanding of it. But even so, it is ‘lovable’. It rings a bell as if tapping into our unconscious knowing that love IS, far and beyond our experiencing of it. So when I love, I am isolated, separated from other’s experiencing of it and yet merged into a flow where I lose my self-conceived identity and become ONE with others. I can feel totally alienated, when I perceive such unfathomable love.
Common sense cannot contain love. It cannot understand it. No matter how it tries to define love, it ends up limiting it. Love cannot be held or contained in the present; nor in the past. Only the future can hold the ethereal possibility of love, held in HOPE.
The challenge is not to give way to doubt but Be-LIVE it.