Funny how these come in twos sometimes…

It occurred to me that I didn’t write about the more natural way to be with change, at least as far as I understand it at this point. Like everyone else, I grew up learning that a certain constant in life was not only good, it was necessary. Children need a certain constant or at the very least rhythm in their day-to-day lives to function well. But that does not mean that they don’t handle or hate change, as a matter of fact, they live in a world of eternal change. By virtue of learning new things every single moment for the first decade and more, change is built in. The underlying structure we as parents provide serves a foundation for them to build their experience on. Ideally anyways. And then some parents go nuts, but that’s another blog post…

Point here is that when I was a kid, I learned that there was a foundation I had in my life and with my parents that was a given. It was there. Call it love, support, acceptance, structure, it was a deep sense of being safe. From that it was easy to go out and play and learn, and to be in change. This began to shift as my ego identification took over slowly but surely, and interestingly enough with that came more resistance to change. It turned into a threat to the status quo. It got hard to change. I didn’t welcome it (as much) anymore. All because I had become my story and my ego id didn’t allow for much change, unless it was in control of it.

In the midst of that shift, my grandmother always reminded me of the fact that change was actually a good thing. Sometimes when we saw each other, she would look at me with a warm smile and say, ‘You are going pregnant with something, I can see it.’ I always knew what she meant, and she was always correct. She saw that I was moving into and through a change, that it was on its way. By saying this she reassured me. She acknowledged that she could ‘see’ something, that it was coming and that it was natural most of all. That was so good to hear and feel. Then she would talk about how exciting it would be to find out what that change may be about, and when it would be ready to materialize. This created a different context and feeling around change for me. I began to notice on my own when I would get into a shifted state if you will, it’s the kind of feeling when we feel out-of-sorts, not only for a day but continuously for a period of time. I am sure that you have experienced this as well. It’s a funny feeling, you can’t quite pin it on something, but it is definitely there, the sense that something is off, something is going to happen, to shift. That is the feeling we have when we naturally move through change and let it do its thing.

We know how to be with change, it’s built in. Getting caught up in ego identification messes it up. When we get stuck in our story of perpetuation, change is an uncomfortable necessity at best and a threat to our existence at worst. It has to be. But when we step out of the story and begin to be in our lives, change becomes a companion on our walk through life. It’s always there, and depending on where we put our focus, we see it in little things all around us, or in the big shifts in our world. Maybe it’s a job change, or we move to another place, we welcome a child into our lives, we get married, divorced, someone passes, we win the lottery, no matter what it is, we are simply with the change, knowing that we are changing continuously as well. Our preferences, tastes, thoughts shift and change all the time. We are not the same person we were yesterday, even if we desperately try to hold on to the story and image we have crafted. Change is there. Not living as our story simply makes it easier to be change(d). We are change(d), all the time. We become change. We can be the change we want to see in the world. I love this saying, and I didn’t quite understand it until last week when I had lunch with a friend.

I used to think that this meant we would have to change to be the person we want everyone else to be (you know, loving, kind, benevolent, etc.) and then go out there and try to change the world to be like that. Quite the tall order. And actually quite arrogant. Missed it entirely. During my conversation with the friend over lunch he talked about this while quoting a spiritual person who had been asked by someone how to change the world, and had answered, ‘go home.’ My friend shared how the presenter ended up explaining what he meant by that and it lead directly to the challenge with the above saying about change. When we live our life outside of our story and end up being in momentness, more here, our whole person and being changes (continuously). Thus our world changes all the time, the very world we live in changes. Because we all may like to believe that we live on the same planet, but we do not, and we most certainly all live in our own world. So when I change, my world changes. And by virtue of this, the worlds of those I come in contact with change. However little, they change. Bingo. So elegant, effective and simple.

So here’s to having some fun with change. Challenge yourself to see it in you, and all around you. Notice when something is shifting in you and pay attention. Get enough rest, eat well, and exercise. You may just be going pregnant with something.

Cheers,

Ralf