All You Need to Know
about Paradigm Shifts.

The word “paradigm” interests me a lot. It is one of those words that carries so much relevance to today’s world affairs, yet it is surprisingly under-utilised. Paradigms are all around us, yet we often fail to recognise them and, as a result, we miss the opportunity to explore their impacts on us, others, and the world around us.

According to Cambridge Dictionary, “paradigm” means a typical example, model, or pattern of something. Cambridge Dictionary continues with some examples such as, “He was the paradigm of what a great leader should be.” This example only shows how to use the word paradigm in a sentence, I guess because that is what dictionaries are about. In other words, it does not speak to the actual meaning of words.

However, in the real world, the term paradigm has an extremely important role in shaping science, engineering, mathematics, technology, arts, and even spirituality and religion. Paradigms are everywhere, and yet they go so easily under the radar.

So, if paradigms are all around us, then why are we missing them? What are they really? Is there any scientific method to detect them? Who benefits from detecting them anyway? You might even ask why you should care about paradigms if others seem not to care about them.

To answer all these questions, we need to pause for a second and take a close look at how our human understanding of the world around us has evolved to become the one on which we agree. Think of the time when the Earth was deemed to be flat. The mere imagination of it not being flat, or going against that popular belief even though it was false, needed powerful evidence.

Paradigm comes from a Greek root referring to pointing toward a pattern. It is rather a guiding method to steer the audience towards a different reality. Therefore, we can say that paradigms steer reality.

But let’s pause again. What if those realities are not desirable? Well, that is why we need to care about paradigms — how they are made, what they are made of, and how to change them. I have to warn here: if you attempt to change your paradigm, you will end up changing your reality.

Paradigms are made when a powerful idea shifts the collective consciousness. Like the example of the Earth not being flat, these shifts call for a fundamental change in our understanding of the world around us. Paradigms evolve slowly, but once they collect enough momentum, they cause tectonic movements.

In science and engineering, the dominant paradigm was set by Newton. This clock-world paradigm, painted by laws of physics, worked so perfectly that it led humans to land on the Moon. With its precise and powerful sets of axioms, classical physics has also led to the creation of modern engineering, economy, and other industries.

However, this perfect reality did not last long when Einstein offered another version of reality — the so-called Theory of Relativity. All of a sudden, we were forced to have another “Earth is not flat” moment. Paradigms need to change; otherwise, we will not be able to evolve.

Accepting this shift of paradigm is easier said than done because this level of change calls for a fundamental shift not only in the way we had imagined the world to be, but also in the way we had come to define our sense of self.

Changing paradigms means we need to let go of our old sense of self and its association with the old supportive paradigms. It is at this level that things start to feel very uncomfortable.

The American scientist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn was the first to coin the term “paradigm shift.” In Kuhn’s point of view, a paradigm shift is not about relativity or the nature of reality. It is rather a result of an elaborative process of scientific and social transformation. The grounds of old realities ought to be changed when better and more accurate theories and ideas are discovered.

The difficulty nevertheless rises when the emotions underneath them are not understood. I came to realise that one of the reasons it is difficult to transform paradigms is the gap between theory and practice.

I came to this insight back in 2015 when I was registered as a first-year doctoral student at the University of Bristol. I was a very young engineer with a vague dream. To add to the complexity of the situation, I was recovering from a difficult marriage and subsequent divorce. I was also a recent immigrant and was undergoing my own process of social integration with the new country.

Little was I aware that the amalgam of this scientific and emotional cocktail would lead to a systemic paradigm shift.

To better understand myself, I was deeply invested in all personal development resources, from meditation to physical exercise. Building a new me was all that I wanted.

Paradigms are built slowly. In fact, I argue that the whole process of life is one single paradigm-building process: the whole process of building a sense of who we are in this world and our relationships with others and the world. This is the meaning of life.

Before starting my PhD studies, keen on learning about Buddhism and meditation, I travelled to Nepal. I spent several weeks in Kathmandu, meditating and getting to know the science of mindfulness. It was the first time that I faced a deep clash inside my own being.

Looking back, facing clashes of ideas in myself was that special watershed moment of my life. Realising that within you opposition exists forces you to either look deeper into the nature of opposition, or to try to get rid of it. The former path leads to paradigm shifts, while the latter leads to experiencing more of the same reality, but this time with an added component of friction.

Fortunately, I chose the first path.

Back in engineering school, subjects were all in a similar theme. Working on computer programmes, simulating models of reality with classical physics and mathematics, writing up articles, and finally submitting a thesis seemed to be the norm. I soon found myself in the same paradigm, doing the same thing as others while answering complex questions that seemed impossible to solve with Newtonian laws.

I could not answer which law of physics helps build sustainable ecosystem management programmes. These were the types of questions that were beyond the old paradigms. After almost two years of struggling with these inner conflicts, I decided to drop out of the PhD programme.

I felt so depressed. I felt like a failure. I felt I did not fit into anything. I was bombarded by a negative inner discourse. All of a sudden, the apparent failure of finding a PhD subject that excited me connected with the previous failures.

Bad paradigms create a field around them and lead to the creation of undesirable identities.

As these negativities continued, the feeling of victimhood festered. Six months passed. One day, while I was walking in the corridors, I saw that the office door of the head of department was open. To this date, I do not know why, but I was attracted to his office.

I went in and I started crying. After a long cry and sharing my story, my then-new PhD advisor said, “I am not sure if I can help you, but I have a few subjects that are not purely engineering. Have you heard of interdisciplinary sciences?”

I said, “No, I have not.”

He continued with an example: “Today, the earthquake engineering industry realised that to build resilient buildings, they need to go beyond classical engineering paradigms. They need to think about social and emotional aspects around earthquakes. To recover from setbacks, we cannot always build better. We need to build better and different.”

All of a sudden, things started to make sense. That was my question. That’s what I lacked in my first PhD subject.

I was so determined. I was filled with joy and happiness. I felt as if I was onto something new. I was so excited that I did not hesitate to propose to my advisor. I said: “Will you be my supervisor?”

I have to say, he did not say yes at that moment. In return, he said, “I will give you five books. Go and read them. If you connect with them, we will begin discussing next steps.”

Those books — Chaos Theory, Changing Minds, Nudge Theory, Systems Thinking, and Resilience of Complex Adaptive Systems — were the building blocks of my new paradigm shift.

The content of these books was so fascinating that I not only read them all in less than two months, but also memorised them. I became them.

The subject of my thesis was set: building resilient infrastructure systems. I spent another year reading and digging into the theories and old paradigms. Nothing yet seemed to click. Paradigms take time to build and need momentum to change.

The frustration I felt at this time was so severe that I became depressed again. Self-pity, shame, feeling of failure — I felt like a victim again. This time the depression was different though; it was accompanied by a subtitle in my head. I noticed that somehow I had managed to build a narrative around these feelings and became them. I had built myself up as a dysfunctional narrative. This was far from resilience, the subject of my PhD.

Soon, I was forced again to look deeply into the conflicts or drop out again. Again, I chose to investigate my own paradigm.

Chaos theory, systems thinking, nudge theory, complex adaptive systems — I applied all the principles to my own life. I became the subject of this research.

My dream was to contribute to the creation of a new engineering paradigm. But the seed of this dream was inside myself. I had to change.

Change yourself and the world around you begins to change. Change your paradigm, and change your reality.

After two more years of personal transformation and scientific exploration, one midnight, things started to click. I woke up with a clear vision in mind: Mindfulness Engineering.

This is the subject of my new theory, a new theory of resilience for a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, or VUCA world. All I needed to know was how to convince my advisor to change his paradigm!

After a period of back-and-forth discussion, I defended my work in front of him. I felt incredibly happy.

My PhD thesis suddenly turned into a vision.

Imagine a world where engineers are mindful. Mindful means fully aware of the rather mystical interconnection between parts and whole. What would that world look like?

The emotional journey of making a paradigm shift is extremely important, yet very few individuals will be given the chance to share what they have realised. The journey is often loaded with intense emotions. These emotions often do not find a healthy release outlet.

Today, I want to share some of these emotions with you.

Paradigm shifts can trigger socio-cultural wounds and fears. As if the entire collective consciousness is being called to reorganise, when a person or a group of people decide to say goodbye to old ways, the process is not welcomed by others.

These people then have to face the extremely painful pain of social isolation, social attack, and sometimes even exile.

Part of the resistance is connected to the dichotomy of paradigm shift. When we start changing paradigms, two scenarios emerge. These two scenarios correspond to the duality of perspective: what we see or think we see, versus what is actually going on.

In other words, from the point of view of the person undergoing a paradigm shift, they are merely peeling off old skins, an old version of their sense of self. However, from the societal or external point of view, these changes can seem like changes in the structure of social norms.

There is a fundamental difference between breaking down social norms and paradigm shift. The former requires a social consensus, while the latter only requires a deep shift in the inner ecology of individuals.

The fact that we realised the Earth is not flat did not change social norms; it nevertheless shifted the collective consciousness of the perception of reality, sciences, and so on. Without shifts in paradigms, societies won’t be able to evolve.

So, the real effort of making evolution possible needs to be directed to making paradigm shifts emotionally safe.

It is totally normal to feel fear when loved ones undergo changes. It is normal to want to keep things stable. But I want to imagine the possibility of renewal of a sense of connection that a single shift of paradigm can bring forth.

When we as collectives realise that protecting the ecological environment should be at the forefront of our affairs, imagine what kind of relationship we would have with life.

Change is difficult. But the price of not changing is extremely high.

To make change easier, I want you to step out of a popular role that is often played by everyone. I call it the game of summit personalities.

Summit personalities are roles fixated under this paradigm that, by achieving x, y, z, we can stand tall and proud in front of others and call ourselves successful. Summit personalities are often addicted to the highs they get from being on top of summits. They have forgotten the journey, the valleys, the bumps in the middle of the ascent, the beautiful rising of the sun, the fears, the hopes.

For them, being on top of the summit has become their entire being.

I used to be a semi-professional climber. I started climbing right after my divorce, as a way to reclaim my wounded femininity. I have to say, the adrenaline and other biochemical cocktail with which my brain was flooded did me incredibly well.

I was well sedated from the pain, distracted from the inner healing that I had to do in order to change my paradigm shift.

Back in 2016, I had an accident which meant the end of my career in climbing. I share this story because right after the accident, I learnt a big lesson: when you reach the summit, you are forced to make a choice — either descend, or find another higher summit.

My summit personality was shattered into pieces when I allowed myself to let go of an old paradigm, an old summit, and embrace the unknown.

If today someone asked me how to change paradigms, I would simply respond: let go of the need for fixed paradigms.

And, if you find someone who is experiencing huge changes, please do not judge them, do not attack them, do not label them, do not ostracise them, do not bully them.

If you feel threatened, have the courage to ask questions, have the courage to be vulnerable, let go of your desire to be right. Seek to understand.

Imagine what the future would hold if we were ambassadors of change.

Sustainable. Resilient. Inclusive. Abundant. Rich and diverse.

These qualities are some of the grand challenges of the 21st century. Today, in particular, with the emergence of the COVID-19 crisis, we are becoming more aware and conscious of the interconnected nature of our world.

Ecological crises around the world, continuous socio-political unrests across the globe, the ongoing concerns over the future of privacy and development of artificial intelligence, safety and resilience of global food supply, resilience of economic systems — these are the kinds of questions that call for a global paradigm shift.

Paradigms are made slowly. Yet once we learn to recognise how they run our realities, we can start mindful interventions.

Today, it is becoming scientifically evident that humans have transformed the Earth extensively at the expense of the resilience and sustainability of ecological systems.

Similarly, in the health industry, it is becoming evident that deep socio-cultural and socio-economic gaps lead to systemic injustice and loss of trust in societies.

One of the major ways that we can accelerate paradigm shifts is recognising the transformative power of crises. Changing old paradigms is no more difficult than changing personal paradigms.

The moment I noticed the victimised paradigm that was running the show of my life for the past 25 years, I began to consciously construct a better one.

Exposure to new environments, new ideas, new experiences, new people, and new communities are all ways that can loosen the grip of old paradigms from our minds.

Newness calls for newness.

Today, the world is calling upon our ability to build this new version of ourselves. If we do it together, one person at a time, a gigantic wave will be generated.

This new wave sets the scene for a new paradigm.

In the meantime, it is crucial to remember the emotional journey behind all paradigm shifts, and cultivate compassion and love.