EMBRACING CHANGE
This week I fought the temptation to buy yellow pansies and plant them in my flower pots. I didn’t do it. I worried that maybe we are in for one more cold spell in South Texas. But I can feel that spring is just around the corner and I look with anticipation to that trip to Lowes to buy a flat of pansies.
The Bible says it eloquently in Ecclesiastes 3:1, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” I love when the season changes from dormant winter to spring, yet I am reminded that life is full of seasons of change and that can be hard. It’s hard to let go of predictability. I like life stable and secure. You could say I’m a bit risk-adverse. I like the comfort of doing things that I know I can do well. Change is hard. I don’t like change. Who does? I don’t like making big life decisions. When I am faced with change, it triggers stress, anxiety, and even at times, depression. It can be overwhelming. I’m forced to change my paradigm and adapt to a new normal. Sometimes it feels like something is lost and I’m left grieving the past season.
Looking back on sixty years of life, it has been full of change: career, marriage, motherhood and parenting, middle age and an empty nest, hormone and health changes, relationship and friendship changes, relating to grown children, caring for aging parents, loss of parents, and relocations and retirement. Each change has required bravery, resilience and flexibility.
Brain research suggests that change triggers the threat response because our brains like certainty. They are wired to predict and control our circumstances so that we will survive. On the other hand, if one sees change as a new challenge, all that change and disruption can bring new perspectives, excitement, resilience and a chance at personal growth. H.G. Wells once said, “We need to constantly be challenging ourselves in order to strengthen our character and increase our intelligence.” In fact, that’s exactly what’s happening in our brain during change and new learning, neurons are forming new connections or synapses.
I know that life is most certainly going to bring change and if I can embrace it, it will bring surprises, opportunities to master something new, experiment with something, and excitement. Closing a chapter and opening a new one doesn’t need to be a negative. I like this quote from Eckhart Tolle, “Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”
I don’t have any lofty advice to share, except to be thankful for the lessons mastered in the past season, be grateful for the supportive people God put in your life during that season, count your past blessings more than past curses, and step out with confidence that something good and something new is waiting to emerge just around the corner. Then maybe buy those yellow pansies in celebration.
Emerging
By Lauri Cruver Cherian
Hoping to rise again
time for metamorphosis
from a cocoon of darkness, anxiety, and illness
and all too comfortable solitude
Crawling out of my old, damaged skin
Embracing a new season
Growing delicate wings
inside this year-long crusty casing
Emerging step by tiny step
with painful effort
Breaking free
Squinting in the dawn’s light
Unknown offering fear or faith
Will I be strong enough
to break out of confinement?
Will I like my new self?
Willing to be transparent in frailty
Allowing the warmth
of the spring sun
to dry my new wings
and a friendly breeze
to aid my lift off
Looking forward to flight
but where? To be determined…
Brave as Thistles©2023 by Lauri Cruver Cherian
Published in The Facts Brazos Living on February
