Embracing Change

 

Sometimes in life we get rather comfortable with the routine of things.  We’re happily doing this or that humming right along and then suddenly it happens, change peers at you just above the horizon.  Sometimes that change is actually coming from deep within you but you may not notice that until you learn to become incredibly aware of how you create in this life and why.

Change often seems like an unwanted surprise and something we often at first resist.  But here is a little nugget of truth you’ve probably heard before or know deep down inside:  If nothing ever changed, we would become complacent, our senses dulled by routine and our brain cells would waste away without the challenge that change brings. 

So, we mix it up a bit or the universe in its infinite wisdom seems to help you along with that whether you are willing or not.  The depth of discomfort change will bring you depends solely on your level of resistance to it.  What we resist persists and so it’s best to face change with courage.  I feel that way about change.

Change is hard to deal with whether we choose it or it chooses us.  The thing to remember is that change is always good.  No.  Of course it doesn’t always feel good but when you get past the moment of big change and look back, you can often see the wisdom you may not have gained without it.  Even unwanted change can bring us necessary growth that we ultimately benefit greatly from.

So much change is on the wind as is so often the case for me.  I’ve learned to look at a change a little differently.  Instead of tensing up in fear or bracing at the thought of it, I just sort of jump into it and take what comes.  There is always something good in the end.  Always.  I can’t think of a single change that did not carry some form of benefit even if it initially brought me pain.  The pain contrasts, hones and refines our character and can make us better and stronger.  We just have to allow it to be that for us and then it will be.  Resisting change just makes it more painful.  Embracing it with curiosity and staying in the moment, makes it much more palatable or at least a tiny bit less painful to deal with.

Sometimes change means we have to mourn the way things used to be.  It’s okay to be in touch with your emotions when change shows up at your door.  Denying emotion is not a loving thing to do for one’s self.  Allowing yourself to feel how you feel is a very kind thing to do for you.  Trusting yourself to manage the change is another way to minimize any suffering.  You can handle change.  You can manage change.  You can recover from change.  You can even find some kind of silver lining in it if you want to.  Everything comes spinning right back to you and your thoughts and perceptions about change.

Change is the one thing we can always count on in life.  Why not settle in and get comfortable with that idea and find a way to be okay with it?  If you don’t like certain changes, depending upon what they are, you have decisions to make. We do get to make some choices in life.  While we cannot stop the sun from setting, we can learn to love the stars.  If we don’t care for sunlight and sunburns, we can move into the shade and still enjoy the day.  Being willing to be a change agent for yourself is sometimes very necessary to bring about your own growth too.  Change is not the enemy.  We can become our own enemy when we face it.  It’s up to us how we will choose to see it.  We can struggle against it and suffer or we can let it flow and carry us to a better place in time.

© 2015 Jaie Hart (Photo/Words)

Understanding our Resistance

Over the past few days the wispy angel wing clouds succumbed to a blanket of gray.  The heat of the past few days has dissipated and a gentle rain has begun to fall.  It's cadence so soft and gentle, like beautiful music.  The peace has given way to deep thought from so many directions its hard to pull one single concept from the swirl of the rest.  There are times like these and if we would know with certainty that such times are part of life and we can ride the waves until the storm passes, we would not resist and create anxiety for ourselves.  Life can seem difficult to bear when it seems like your emotions are not your own...like they have been externally manufactured by some force of resistance in the universe and unexpectedly placed within your core.  But, take heart for it is only an illusion to give you something to do for a time.

Our thoughts move at lightning speed sometimes.  They move so quickly that we cannot consciously comprehend the emotions we attach to them.  We only know it when we find a difficult moment where consciousness itself begins to be a struggle.  We may live for the night, a nocturnal reprieve to escape far and away deep within the land of dreams. The reality is, it's only thoughts and they hold no sway over our experience except to the extent we give them purchase within our reality.  Have you ever sat down in a quiet space with the only focus to feel your body and experience your surroundings without the mind judging and labeling?  It's hard, I know but such an exercise gives you a taste of the truth.  We exist beyond our thoughts and our emotions.  We are not them.  However, if we are not careful with our approach in embracing them, we may lose ourselves believing we are our thoughts and we are the anxious and fearful things that generate a wild range of emotions.  We're not that.  We are the quiet, serene and peaceful being just watching with amusement the struggle of thoughts to gain purchase as truth.  Thoughts are symbols only - things we learned to construct in this frame but there is more to existence than our thoughts.  We exist not to think but to be.  Thinking is a side effect that if not properly understood can taint an otherwise very beautiful life.

And then, then there is emotion - the true power we hold within us.  Our emotions generate energy and we feel happy, sad, joy, love, anger and more.  We create these emotions with our own thoughts.  So, if we create these things unconsciously, automatically, just imagine what it is that we could do and experience if we take back control, ignoring the chaos and substance of our thoughts and push past them in moments surrounding ourselves only with the peaceful comfort of the base energy from deep within our souls.  We can generate bliss in the most chaotic of moments but it's a choice.  We often don't realize our emotions as a choice and some will fight to the death of a relationship to prove that fact wrong but consider this...When a child must put away his toys and resists, mother or father will take the toys from the child and put them away.  In the child's mind, not understanding what is happening, he will generate thoughts that he is not loved by mother or father because they are creating his unhappiness by taking his toys away.  The reality is that mother or father loves the child very much but its time for dinner, a bath or bedtime to help promote better health, safety and security for the child.  You cannot explain this to the child because he  has not yet gained an appropriate level of awareness to grasp the reality...the truth.  And so, it goes that we feel emotions and often do not understand why we are going through what we are going through.  But consider further, perhaps, there is a very good reason you are experiencing what you are experiencing just now.  Take it a step further and consider that what you are experiencing is something you wanted to experience to enrich your soul and teach you about the strength and love you are truly made of.  When you begin to understand you'll no longer react feeling unloved because something you wanted has been taken away.  You may realize that you are choosing these feelings only because you don't yet know any other way to process what you are experiencing.  You may further begin to understand that you can seek the deeper meaning of an experience and change the resulting emotions you are left with. You can learn to soar higher with your understanding and, thus, change the landscape of your vision - your experience and choose a different set of emotions. 

This is a very difficult lesson that takes time to fully appreciate.  But once you gain this understanding in one simple situation, it will forever change the way you view the experiences in your life.  As your life unfolds, you will begin to look even more for silver linings or the real truth rather than the provisional ones your uneducated minds may reach for.  Then, then you begin to free yourself from the lower limits of existence.  You begin to think about things differently, try on different thoughts and then begin to experience different resulting emotions which will bring to you greater understanding.   It takes only a willingness to be open to the possibilities.  As a small child grows and learns more about the construct of the world he exists in, he begins to react less negatively when mom or dad says its time to put the toys away.  In fact, over time the child chooses not to be a victim by resisting the actions around him that exist for his own good.  In time, the child puts away his own toys, no longer resisting what is best for his own well being and the experience changes.  He no longer feels unloved but understands the love being displayed before him.  The child then is free to grow into adulthood and greater lessons and much deeper understanding of the construct that is his life.  It gets easier over time the more we learn and allow our own growth and begin to accept and move with the events that unfold in our lives rather than continually and on auto-pilot - railing against what unfolds.  We are only victims when we do not understand.  Its a hard lessons, no doubt about it.  At the same time, its a beautiful one when we shift from a being that has things happen to them randomly without seeming cause - to a being who creates from his or her thoughts, emotions and energy, understanding and love.  ~Blessings

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo is not mine but a random internet find).