Change. I love you. I hate you. I accept you.
Change is hard.
When I was around the age of eight, I had a massive tantrum. It was time to go back to school, and I couldn’t wrap my head around how I was going from ice cream trucks and bike rides in the afternoons to math and reading until three every day. In my little world, this was a HUGE change. I cried, I screamed, I slammed doors. I told my mom I hated her. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why she would allow something as terrible as going back to school happen to me! Her daughter! Didn’t she love me?! What I didn’t realize at the time, but I have become much more adept at assessing is that I was having a tantrum about change.
Guess what? I still have them. They are adult versioned, and usually include me cursing at someone or hiding in the bathroom with Instagram, but I still have them.
Let’s talk about change in the context of this year. Ay de mios. What a year! If this year had a brand, it would be “change”. Our homes have gone from places we eat and sleep to home, office, school, weekend plans and everything in between. We’ve gone from kissing and hugging friends to Zooming with them. We’re lining up for shots instead of concerts. Date night is walking the dog. This year has brought on epic societal, political and emotional change. Adult tantrum central!
How are you all doing with it?
Me? Well, sometimes Ok, but sometimes I’m straight tantruming.
It’s ok to have all of these feelings. Truly. I believe in the get it out method of being emotionally fit and OK.
Feel it. Get it out. Create space. Move forward (more on this in another episode).
Change is different though. Change can be subtle, and it can also be sudden and ferocious.
Things change, and you can choose to fight it like I did in the scene above. Kicking and screaming. Truth was, at the end of the day, I was going to school no matter how I felt about it. I had a choice - I could curse everyone out on the way in and the way home or I could let it wash over me and accept that this was necessary (even if it was evil).
Let’s imagine I did win, and my mom did allow me to stop going to school in order to satisfy my need for things to stay the same. The ice cream truck would have stopped rolling around, and though I could have rode my bike all fall, by December there would have been snow on the ground. Change would have occurred anyway.
Change is natural, it’s inevitable, it’s our relationship to it that makes it more or less hard.
So, Obi Wan, how do I make this change with change happen for myself? I’m so flattered you would call me Obi Wan - have always considered myself more of an Oprah, but I’ll take it. Glad you asked. It’s simple really:
SLOW THE FUCK DOWN.
I’m over simplifying here, but really, take a deep breath and think about what’s going on. We all have our heads in the news, in Instagram, Twitter and other outlets that are trying to convince us how to feel about the changes happening around us. It makes it feel like it’s happening TO us.
Instead, take a breath. Unplug. Thread the needle. Look at the whole picture. Harness your inner wisdom and know this:
Things change and they will change again. Just because one thing happens, doesn’t negate something new or different or worse right around the corner. Your circumstances are not static. We can count on change, and in that you can rely.
Things are changing all the time. See, right now, the time changed. The temperature changed. Your kids grew a millimeter. Your coffee got cold. Some change we notice and some change we don’t. Take comfort in the fact that you can’t control any of it. One less thing for you to do.
Get clear on what matters. The closer you are to your values and your center, the less shook you will feel when things change. Knowing what matters makes everything else feel manageable.
If you can, meditate. Corny? Maybe. I have personally found that I am able to get closer to being grounded through my meditation practice. Things like “change” feel small potatoes when saddled next to “compassion” and “lightness of being”.
I am here for you tantrum or not. Change is hard. Breathe deep. Ask for help. Talk it out. Things will change again by the time you do.