As an example of the former--a conceptual shift: In February we found out that my wonderful, healthy mom, my boys' regular caregiver and their most ardent champion, MY mom, had a mass on her lung.
It took another month (a long, anxious, tear-drenched month) to confirm that it was cancer. On Good Friday at the end of April, she was in surgery, only be told that they found the cancer inoperable. We went from a happy Christmas filled with videos of her dancing wildly with my two year old, to not knowing how much longer this amazing woman would be with us in just four months. My life is not only physically different now--unreliable and expensive childcare, my kids needing more attention now that Nona isn't here on a weekly basis to play with them all day, date nights few and far between, frequent trips to north Florida to visit her--it's conceptually different. Instead of my mom being the one I turn to for support; I see myself as the caregiver now. Also, interestingly, whereas I used to perceive the two hour drive to her house with my kids as a major obstacle to my visiting her often, I now make the trip about once every week or two with ease. It's this kind of re-framing that I find most fascinating about conceptual change. Something that was once seen as difficult becomes a non-issue because one's paradigm has shifted.
What is so amazing is how affect is intricately tied into one's framing of a situation. Whereas the drive used to be perceived negatively, now it's a neutral, even positive experience. So odd and not something, I don't think, that can be accomplished by mere will power. Though I think it's a subject worthy of investigation (I do love experiments!). What about the rest of you? What paradigm shifts have you experienced recently?
