Change happens often like an impending storm. The air intensifies. We feel unsettled or uncertain. We have a sense of life shifting and we dig in…or we head outside to see if we can see the shape of the tumult headed our way. Sometimes the storm is welcome – a cleansing of the debris at our feet. Sometimes it is unbidden and upsetting – a pattern we had become used to is ripped apart and we find ourselves forced to face the edge of things.
Crucial questions come to mind:
How might we root ourselves?
How might we find a way to name and accept the swirling winds?
How might we, over time, become larger than the shift…finding a way to embrace the hidden good within?
In my own time of change…recovering from a compassion fatigue-y kind of grief…I rediscovered three gems along the road.
1. Stillness = wisdom. With the capacity to become quiet and pause long enough to really see what is being asked of us we find our way to wisdom.
2. Connection = courage. It is in the moment of connection, when one trusted other truly understands our experience, that we find the courage to move forward.
3. Letting go is a doorway. To become larger than the shift in front of us we must first be willing to let go of what had been true. When we allow ourselves to unhook from old habits and face the unevenness in the moment, we open a door to what is possible within our very being and in the larger world surrounding us.
We may not know all that is ahead. We may not have an idea about what it will all look like in six months or a year. But we can find a way to stand in a steady place and stretch into the calling of the new. Day by day, with stillness, connection and an honest appraisal of what no longer works, we find our way.
Love, Maria
