I may have been born with adaptability as a strength that I could tap into whenever needed. When I was young, change happened and I had to adapt. I have a sneaking suspicion that my ability to adapt was built from the events of my childhood.
A fire burned down my house when I was four years old. The aftermath was grim; my parents couldn’t find a place to rent. So they farmed the kids out to friends and family until they could secure housing for us.
My sister and I went to a friend of my fathers. I don’t believe we had met them, they were unknown. I was four years old, my sister was seven. Having lived through significant trauma, subsequently ripped away from our family, sent to people we did not really know. I don’t recall my feelings, but I am sure it was a difficult transition.
After the family reunited, we moved from rental to rental house. I believe the family moved approximately every two years. Start at a new school, make new friends, get settled; wash, rinse, repeat.
There is a saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I believe that each little change in my life created my ability to adapt. By the time I was an adult, I had embraced change, finding that I could look at it with excitement, rather than fear.
Many people fear change, I believe it may be based on the fear of the unknown, the fear of uncertainty. We want to be certain about our future. We want to be certain about whom we should date. We want to be certain that we are on the right path.
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.
At what point does the need to know, to be certain, cross over into the need to control? Isn’t that what this really is? The fear of change is based on our need to control our lives. The question that keeps coming to me is – Is being in control really helpful? When we fear change, we are resistant to the circumstances. When we are resistant, we suffer, we worry, we may become anxious. Just how is this need to control helping?
I have been playing with the idea of surrendering to life for more than a year; and I find that letting go of the need to control the unknown has minimized my fear, minimized my anxiety and minimized my worry. This is not to say that I never experience these feelings; for I do. But having the mindset of surrender has given me the gift of being able to master those feelings, instead of letting them control me.
I have found, in my life of embracing change and surrendering to what is present, that while I may experience hardship, I find new beauty and freedom at the end of my journey of transformation.
A butterfly doesn’t start life out being the beautiful beings that they are. They begin life as a caterpillar. The caterpillar lives, eating to prepare for the upcoming transformation. They surrender to the process; with trust and vulnerability they submit to the rebirthing of themselves into their highest and most beautiful form.
The caterpillar completely turns itself over to the unknown, trusting in the process that it is encoded to perform. The caterpillar spins a cocoon; and settles in. Within the cocoon, the caterpillar liquifies; the cells rearrange to form a butterfly. When the butterfly emerges, a whole new world of beauty and magic opens up, there is a freedom and grace previously unavailable.
The song Metara starts off saying, “We stand at the threshold a a great dawning, something deep within life is changing. An era is ending, and at the very core of creation something new is being born. We are awakening from a long collective sleep…”
This world is in an era of change. We have no control over the changes happening. We are experiencing chaos and upheaval, change and transformation. The old guard is shifting; Humanity is awakenening.
Can you be open to this change? Can you surrender to the process of this transformation? If you can, you will be blessed; because the less resistance you choose, the less suffering you will experience.
As always, I send you blessings, dear ones.
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