The feedback from last week's muse about Deep Listening was incredible - and very touching. From the mum making listening deeply to her child her number one priority, to the sound engineer who connected the significance of being 'heard' with the words 'heart' and 'earth'. Listening deeply - and being deeply heard - IS our heart connection and brings us into deeper connection with Mother Earth, our sacred home.
You guys made me realise that there is a deep truth in the guidelines that hold and contain the work that I do, and support my members in my community to do. To each and every one of you who wrote back, your thoughts, insights and vulnerability was gratefully received and heard. Thank you.
So I want to continue to mine this deep seam of wisdom in our community guidelines, and based on my own personal journey, I want to look this week at change.
How do we handle change?
And how can we handle change better?
Firstly, I feel it's important to highlight that there are two different kinds of change; that which happens without our active or conscious participation; and that which we choose to initiate.
The first kind is change that 'just happens', it is the stuff of life, the nature of the universe :
When change happens outside of us, for example, our partner leaves, or dies, we lose our job, we are diagnosed with an illness, we live through political and climate change, and even pandemics, we can often feel powerless and lost. We may fall into a period of 'victimhood', or powerlessness, wondering 'why me', and having no idea how to navigate this new situation.
The second kind is conscious, self-initiated change :
I believe this comes from reaching a threshold of discomfort, a realisation that we are not living our best, not living in alignment with our values. We are no longer willing to accept the status quo, whether that is in our relationships, our health, our work, our living space... The pain of the present pushes us to design a different future for ourselves.
They may be different in their source, but I have learned one clear and consistent absolute truth about change and how to handle it, no matter where it comes from :
CHANGE = DISCOMFORT
Either we allow the discomfort to shrink and control us, and diminish our capacity to act.
Or we can choose to embrace and lean into the discomfort and recognise it as the container for our own growth.
In fact, I believe that the change beyond our control might be an essential precursor to us initiating conscious action. But whether we initiate conscious action is not a given.
This week I find myself in one of the most intense periods of change and 'letting go' since my mother died. Everything is happening at once, and the changes are coming so fast, layered one on top of the other, that most days I feel almost completely overwhelmed, as if I am functioning on some kind of auto-pilot until the storm has passed.
But then I have moments of clarity. Moments when I realise that I have a choice in every single moment. To be a passive bystander, even victim to the events, or to recognise that I am a co-creator in all that manifests in my life. I have a choice to cling to the past and fear all that I am letting go of, or look to the future and the infinite field of pure potential that awaits me.
I have leaped into the unknown before and it served me beyond my expectations and dreams.
And so I do my best to choose not only to breathe, and trust and allow things to unfold moment by moment, but to recognise that the pain is an essential part of my own growth in this process.
To embrace the shadows that are emerging within me, which need to be healed in order for me to evolve.
To see the resistance that feels like it is guiding me to safety, and realise that precisely that which I am resisting, is the path I need to follow.
I need to dive into the shadows, the pain and resistance in order to flourish.
The butterfly cannot be born without the immense struggle to free itself from the chrysalis.
So this week....
How do you relate to change that happens around and outside of you?
What are your discomfort and resistance trying to show you? Are you ready to listen?
Click here to share your thoughts with me.
Thank you all for being here, for sharing this space with me. I look forward to connecting with you this week on change, discomfort and growth, and hopefully guiding you into your resistance, towards your evolution to find your flourish despite - or because of - the discomfort of change,
With love