Managing Change

Life changing moments come throughout our lives. Some are more exciting and easy to accept as a change in our lives. Things such as winning the lottery, meeting a new friend, etc.; and therefore, we don't necessarily look to others for advice, support, or understanding. And that is because these type of changes usually don't carry along any guilt, fears, anxiety, or confusion.

But often times some life changing moments can seem very scary to move through and past; and may require advice, support and understanding from others. Some are very big changes that affect our every day life, and can quite possibly change us for the rest of our lives. They can even change other people in our lives. They can pose themselves as a threat to our comfort zone. They can even cause us to act irrational when we can't make sense of things we don't understand. And create illusions of uncertainty!

Over all, we feel that "life".... as we once knew it.... is suddenly turned up-side down. As if someone blind folded us and spun us around at the speed of a hundred miles an hour; and when we open our eyes everything seems very distorted and we feel like we are going in a thousand different directions at once. There is no balance, and we, as well as everything around us is completely unstable. And we feel like we are falling in each direction our bodies turn to. Looking for a soft place to land, or for someone to catch us and save the day. And many times we do fall....flat on our face!

Then we find that we somehow re-group and gain... for just a brief moment... enough stability and strength to pick ourselves up, and brush ourselves off. And many times we even discover there's a few emotional bruises and scrapes. But somehow we manage to move forward despite the fears of losing our balance and falling again, once it becomes too overwhelming to stand on our own two feet.

And through these type of changes, because it is difficult to stand on our own two feet at times, we most always turn to someone for their advice, support, and understanding through it all. They give us the compassion we need for the feelings that we have; the encouragement that everything is going to be okay; the advice needed because of our confusion; and most importantly...they give us that inner strength to move forward.

But there are times, however, that there may be certain circumstances where there is no one to turn to through the difficult times, and you realize that you must walk through it alone without the help from others. And this can be even more scarry without the support and encouragement that you long for right now. Quite possibly, even though what you are going through is real and profound; there are much larger priorities, responsibilities, and concerns that require you to take on additional things on top of what you are already going through. Therefore, you may even feel like you are being forced to swallow the original problem that has you spinning emotionally, mentally, physically, and even possibly spiritually. Put on a smile, and at least "appear" to be the strong one through it all.

So how do we move forward in a positive direction when everything, and everyone, and most importantly ourselves seems so unstable and we don't even know where it is we are headed? We can't see far enough ahead of us to know that we are going in the right direction in the first place. And our fears, anxiety, and what have you, has such a grip on us that we feel like we are not only going in the wrong direction, but we are making matters worse because of feelings as well. Yet, for some reason we can't shake those feelings to better our situation and bring us better results.

"Surrender"....... to what is...... has to be our number one step. Without surrender, we find that we just keep fighting against what is. And "acceptance" is our next step. The sooner we accept what is and that we need to surrender to it, the sooner we learn how to live with it and figure out a way to make it work for us. And finally, we need "faith" that what ever change it is that we are going through, that God wouldn't have us go through it if he didn't think that we couldn't handle it. Faith that there is a purpose for why things happen the way they do. Faith that things will work itself out for the good in the long run. And that not only is everything going to be okay, but also that we are going to become a better person because of it.