- Change, like any creation, starts with a thought. For example, first you think what a great idea it would be to get married, you envision a wedding ceremony complete with wedding dress, cake, champagne, a minister, rings, a bridegroom and guests, then you start planning it and making it happen. And on the day, your plan comes together: you have a wonderful service, reception and a new spouse, just like you planned it.
- Change is messy. It can be uncomfortable while we struggle with uncomfortable thoughts, emotions and uncertainty, not to mention people pulling us in different directions. In many ways, change is like tidying a cupboard or workspace. First you pull all the stuff out, then you sort through the clutter, throwing out what you no longer need, organising the remainder and repacking the cleared and cleaned space.
- Whether you instigated the change or it was something imposed on you, there is an adjustment period where you experience elements of the grief or change cycle: excitement, anger, denial, despair. It can catch you unawares, especially if it was a change you wanted.
- Change gives you an opportunity to view the world differently. You can go down the ‘poor little me’ road of victimhood, the ‘what do you expect from a people like that’ road of villainy, the ‘there’s nothing I can do’ helpless road or any number of variations. The choice is yours and will dictate how you will experience the change and it’s long term effect. As the author and musician Tuli Kupferberg so eloquently, said: “When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.”
- Change is now so endemic, it has become a cliché to say the only constant is change. Change is indeed the only thing we can be sure of in our five-sense world. Whatever we hang our security on, the economy, government, education, our job, partner, spouse, parents, children, it is likely to change. Hanging your security on these things is like building your house on sand, something is sure to shift sooner or later. It is becoming more and more imperative to find the constant factor within; the changeless within you. Hanging your security on that is building your house on rock.
