How To Navigate Our Love/Hate Relationship With Change

We do this over and over: crave change. Think about how many times in even one single month we desire the feeling of: new, exciting, different, out of the ordinary, hoping to break up the monotony. AND then in response and resonant with our desires, change actually shows up and begins shifting our lives and routines; how do we often respond? We panic, stress over the change, immediately desiring it to halt. Funny Beings aren’t we? I am not sure I have ever met anyone not intimately familiar with the above dichotomy.

What are we to do? Remain doomed to emotional flip flopping?  After deeply contemplating this conundrum, I created a few pointers to help maintain high frequency in times of change in order to more smoothly navigate the potentially dangerous forest of change and uncertainty.  

• Acknowledge change and its importance as one of the foundational assumptions of life: a) Life Changes moment by moment. It is a constant. The previous second will never be repeated. No two seconds are ever alike. b) Love is the substratum underlying life. c) Life has no beginning and no ending.
  The moment we accept the constant that Life changes, we can relax into the unknown aspect of change. Isn’t it this “unknown” that we ultimately react to? Change actually feels fun and exciting when free of the element of “not knowing”.
  Add in the element of unknown and watch our emotional selves start spinning out of control. Using acceptance and then gratitude, we keep our emotional states in high frequency where we can eventually stabilize in higher expressions like excitement, possibility, fun, joy, etc.
  
• Nourish our physical body to reduce production of stress hormones during rapidly changing moments. Temporarily supplementing with an adaptogen combination, increasing physical movement like taking a walk or extra yoga, eating healthy fresh “real” food (not junk or processed) all represent simple measures to control the HPA axis (hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal axis) from over producing cortisol, adrenaline or serotonin — stress driven hormones that keep us trapped in the survival stress response. When our body is in safe mode and not driven by an activated HPA axis, we experience higher frequency emotions like peace, calm, contentment.
  
• Remain grounded in clarity through practicing mindfulness/awareness of our present moment. Stay grounded/connected inside with our own self, with our breath, with our body, with our emotions, etc.
  When we feel connected and grounded within ourselves, a storm might be raging around us, and yet we remain calm in the center, eye of the storm. Again, this allows us to stabilize in high frequency states which allows us to connect positively with change and even more importantly with the “unknown” associated with change.

These suggestions to help navigate seamlessly through the waves of change have helped me weather some unsettling times and circumstances. May they serve you as well! 

My deepest wish for lovely months ahead!