One of the basic human needs that all of us share, although granted some of us more strongly than others, is the need for certainty. We like to know that the car will start, the double almond milk latte we order on Tuesday will taste the same as Friday’s, that our stock portfolio will be worth more in the future, that we will turn on the shower and hot water will come out. We get jobs, have relationships, teach our kids, train our employees, choose the cities where we live, even go into business for ourselves, and work to get our world in order. We coach and shuffle and move things around until we finally get to the sweet spot where its all operating “smoothly”. There you are, cruising along, albeit sometimes at high speed, and what happens? Life happens. The universe and the multitude of different people, personalities, nature…shifts and the unavoidable happens. Things change.
Change is the one and only thing that is constant. The world is always evolving, moving, shaking, growing, dying. I don’t know why it always catches me by surprise, but there you go. In the best cases it is subtle, and we don’t notice it daily, like aging and our kids getting taller, but the biggest struggles happen when we get caddywomped by a big one. You lose a big client, you get fired, the market crashes, you lose someone…Life.
Change is never painful, only resistance to change is painful. –Buddha
Unfortunately there is no shortcut around the pain that we feel when we have to alter our inner workings, change our psychology, accept the changes that happen whether we plan for them or not. You can read all you want but the only way out of the pain is through it, by feeling it and accepting the feelings, and remembering what we all know deep inside at our core, that change is inevitable. No matter how much money you make, how perfect you make your world, your level of success, things are always changing. No matter how painful it is, you can’t put the fire out by focusing your energy on it, that just feeds the flames and makes it grow.
Feel that fire and see that it has the potential to free you from your old beliefs, beliefs that you may not even realize you have, that you are not enough, that you don’t have enough, that you are not perfect just as you are. Remember that everything changes, and that you are not alone on this journey, we are all here with you, at different stages on the path.