A Change is Gonna Come

 I will be the first to tell you that change is inevitable, whether or not you are ready or interested.  Sometimes, we are the driving force behind the change we experience.   Other times it seems to sneak up when we least expect it.  Either way, it can often be uncomfortable and unwelcome, throwing our neatly arranged things into disarray and making us evaluate and put everything back into some type of order.  There are some times, however, when this is not the case.  When change is a welcome and somewhat unexpected intruder, bringing hope and opportunity along with momentary chaos.

Lately, I have been feeling like I am standing on the edge of the second type of change.  A welcome and unexpected one that will bring new choices and challenges my way.  It feels exciting and mysterious, and a little bit unnerving as well.  Change is something I tend to welcome, or at least find comfort in, but it also makes me feel impatient at times.  Knowing that things are about to go through an upheaval, I tend to just want it to happen already so I can start the work of sorting through the rubble.  what I am coming to realize is this desire to rush to the end is yet another way of trying to control outcomes.  Bah!

Trying to sit with this feeling of pending change is hard.  It is hard to wrestle my forward-leaning mind back to the present moment.  It is even more difficult to stop myself from attempting to find solutions to the outcomes I have managed to calculate.  And yet, I try.  I try to be still and conscious.  I try to remain open to the unknown.  I try to remind myself that no matter what the eventual outcome is, I will be moving forward in a direction that is right for me.  

Elizabeth Gilbert said it so well when she suggested that we need to know what our ultimate yes is so we can say no to everything that gets in the way of it (that was a terrible paraphrase of what she actually said, but the idea remains intact).  This is where I also struggle.  Knowing that a change might mean welcoming something new in while escorting something else out.  It is hard to let go or push pause on enjoyable things, and yet sometimes exactly what is needed to fully embrace what it is we are really meant to be doing.  

Instead of fixating on the unknown and uncomfortable aspects of the future, I am working on holding the excitement close to my chest.  Knowing that change comes and goes like waves, and whatever washes over us in one moment will be replaced by the next wave coming our way.   Surrendering to it, embracing it, and trusting in the mystery of it all - there is no better way to ebb and flow.  

  

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