What does your voice say about change?

Ouch! Change is the most difficult thing we deal with in life and yet change is, without question, the only constant and dependable thing about life. We get fooled into thinking that things don't change. We drive our cars to work on the same roads everyday; we perhaps wake up in the same home every day; the sun comes up in the east every day and sets quietly into the west in the evening. Tides may come in, but dependably they go back out. But change...change happens every moment of every day of our lives, in the most minute of ways. We just don't see it.

That is what is so incredibly miraculous about change. It eventually makes itself known but it is constant, in the microchips of our daily life. Then one day we awaken and change hits us in the face and we wonder about it. We fight it. We cling to to what is familiar, even when it does not serve us. I remembering listening to my parents talk about the "good ole days" and completely missing the good days they were living in. We cannot fight change, anymore than we can fight growing from an infant into a child, into a mature adult. So why do we resist the idea of change so much? My resistance seems to come from the idea that by letting go to change might mean I was wrong, or might feel like defeat. Resisting change only made me ill. "This too shall pass," an ancient wisdom passed down by our ancestors, could be a mantra that would serve each of us.

Life is challenging enough without resisting what is natural about it. The events that cause change are built on small details, small events, and even smaller unconscious behaviors and decisions. I have realized that many of my own personal changes...to my health, my relationships, my environment...have all occurred over time. They didn't just show up one day. Many of the changes I have lived through would not have been so shockingly unnerving had I paid a little bit of attention or listened a little more closely...or followed my gut. Even before Mt.St. Helens erupted in 1980, the mountain gave warnings to the people who were paying attention. Sometimes we fight for change; sometimes we work hard for change; sometimes we fear change. We all get to choose how we face change. The question is: are you ready for it?