“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
– Lao Tzu
As much as it is explicit, change may be a subtle emotion too – like changing mind over something.
At times, it could just hang around like a niggling before any significant impact shows up.
Other times, there could be dramatic alterations.
And yet others may seem more like organic, evolutionary shifts.
Nothing is right or wrong!
But change can also bring about fears of the unknown.
How do we make peace with this constant in our lives?
How do we ease into change more fully?
Interestingly, the answer to that question came from an unlikely source, which also inspired this blog article.
I spend many a mornings on my patio, communicating with my plants. Often, I am drawn to one of them who seems eager to speak or perhaps has a message to share.
This particular morning, I was drawn to the Aloe vera plant. It has been luxuriating in the summer and even making babies!
This time around the message came over a few days as I sat observing how the plant was morphing to make way for a new change, a baby.
The stalks of the plant first spread out a little, then bent over like a pretzel across and returned to the center curving inwards creating a nearly enclosed space for the little one to emerge.
It looked like an external womb space.
It was as if the plant was following a code that was imprinted in its DNA and just executing this landscape of change quite seamlessly.
All in its own time, there was no hurry!
The message came out clear – “Open to be changed”.
At the core of navigating change, however big or small lays the allowing and surrendering to whatever is the way.
To let go of expectations, to let go of plans and even let go of a vision of the way things “should” turn out.
To allow for change to re-organize, to be morphed into what facilitates growth in the highest alignment possible.
To be in the liminal spaces of not knowing, not understanding and nothing revealing.
To know and trust you have the ability to adapt to change.
To know that you have help available when it is a little too much.
To remember that there is an inherent code running deep down that knows what is possible for you and me just like the stalks of the aloe.
To help return to the oneness we all belong to, which is an ever transforming and evolving ‘change’ landscape.
To allow yourself to be changed by change.