Finding Growth Through Life’s Changes

Someone said to me a few weeks ago, as I was looking at the incessant rain and quite honestly- flipping out a little about climate change, she said, “Well, that is the one thing that is constant- change.”

She said that, and I know that, but applying it to the world we live in right now was helpful.

Nothing ever stays the same.

The weather, relationships, the economy, our bodies. Humans are always born directly into a state of flux. Things are particularly dark right now. We sit on the viewing platform of two horrific wars- far away yet so close for so many. Filled with senseless tragedy. Alongside it, the rain increases, the world gets hotter, and tension between political sides is intensifying and increasingly loaded with hatred. 

Yet. Yet. Yet. 

We were built for change.

I had a thought, a need not to underestimate us. We become increasingly attached to the here and now. We tend to view change with some degree of fear and resentment. We rage at others and ourselves for not doing more to prevent the negative impact on our world. We lament that we have not valued our resources more, or been less excessive and less wasteful of what we have been given.

The younger generation looks to the “grown-ups” as careless and neglectful of their future.

While I hear this loud and clear, and I hold the earth and her beauty very close to me, I think the perspective of the inevitability of change is useful.

Adaptability is also what makes us who we are. Being forced to recognize and adapt to new environments and new situations challenges us to be smarter.

It pushes us to recognize what we need and require versus what we simply crave and desire. It streamlines us, and makes us cleaner versions of ourselves. I often look back on the hardest and most challenging times of my life.

Take a moment to reflect on yours. 

When I think back to who I was in those times and who I am now, I have two experiences:

I have empathy for myself during that struggle and the change I had to endure.  I see the effort that was required to reinvent myself and make myself new.

The also see that the new version is better.

She is smarter, tougher, and wiser. It was just simply impossible to see it in the moment.

We can only see the impact of adversity when the experience is distant in the rearview mirror and we have adapted and changed to sustain the new life that we have built. 

It is so very hard to do, but let’s try to think about how change is serving us while it is happening. Far more than a silver lining of hardship it can be an internal call to action.

Do not let paralysis be the answer, but allow yourself to be activated to change by the very struggle of change itself. 

Sharon Salzburg recently posted “Meditation doesn’t replace action”. Meditation provides us the ability to identify what we want our intentions to be. Listen to what voice the change is sparking within us.

That is how change will inspire our growth and adaptation. Follow your spark.️