Thank you Carol for your comment, citing Mirabai Starr. To decide “… to walk through this world looking through the eyes of love, then anything and everything that we do with the intention and attention on the sacred, including our most difficult experiences, counts and belongs” could not have said more precisely about the motivation to be open to change. And it is needed to open up to this, for me as well as it is for our world and all beyond. Welcoming change is the way for all to unfold to this eternal beauty and peace for all, now and always. Thank you all for your engaged and heartfelt comments. May all be blessed.
A former VP at my company once said ” As long as you can embrace change” you have job security at this organization. I have been with the company going on 11 years. Prior to that I felt little job security over many years. It was refreshing to hear. Change challenges us and offers opportunities to learn . I choose to embrace change even though my initial reaction is not to.
I am grateful that I’ve had so much practice at change.
No, seriously. I did not have the privilege (if that’s what it is) of growing up in the same neighborhood, going to school and church with the same people, never going out of my comfort zone unless it was for entertainment’s sake. I haven’t always worked doing the same thing. I’ve moved and traveled all over most of the Eastern United States and a good chunk of the Western. I’ve never had the resources to travel to foreign lands (except for a brief visit to Juarez, Mexico years ago and a couple forays into Toronto, Ontario as a kid). I used to resent it. But now, in the Second Half of Life, I am so glad that’s how my life worked out.
If I’d had all that stability, all that consistency, this world and this time might drive me over the edge. Or worse, I’d double down and try desperately to make the reality of this uncertain, rapidly changing world and time, fit into the tiny silo I’d defined as “normal.” I’m pretty sure I’d do that. Even with all that change, I still struggle to stop talking and listen to an opinion other than my own. I still catch myself looking down on people who don’t live as I do or think as I do. I still have to stop short when I notice myself thinking I know anything.
But I have the tools to do those things a little more easily than I would have done if my life, the life I’ve been given, had not been exactly the way it is.
Funny,
dear Dawn Elaine . . .
I have moved around for my whole life,
and took it as it came.
My nickname in junior high school
was ‘Gypsy’.
I am older now
and so tired of it now,
that whatever happens,
I want where I am now
to be my forever home.
No more moving for me.
You are right though . . .
Living in so many places
has taught me so much,
it has given me a broader world view,
built my endurance and compassion,
and even instilled in me
a liitle wisdom. ♥
I have a natural aversion to change,
much like the cats . . .
they like their routines
and stick pretty rigidly to them.
When the clocks change time twice a year
they wonder why supper is so early or so late . . .
it takes them a week or two
to adjust to the new time.
I don’t remember this happening
when I had dogs.
Even when looking forward to a positive change,
like packing to go to the ocean for a week,
I feel a certain amount of trepidation,
despite the fact that part of my heart
belongs there.
Home,
wherever that is,
is ultimately,
in the end,
where I want to be.
Changes that I love
are bringing home a cat from the shelter,
watching a new plant in the garden
grow and thrive,
seeing a bird I’ve never seen before
at the feeder or in the bird bath,
finding and refinishing a vintage dresser,
making new curtains for my windows.
There are different kinds of change . . .
the temporary ones that I’ve been writing about,
and forever changes,
like losing someone I love to illness,
moving across the country
or the world,
leaving a job or a career . . .
changes that we can’t undo.
These are harder.
Once I’ve accepted this
I can begin to lean into it,
open my eyes and heart to curiosity,
and slowly find my feet,
and embrace the ‘new normal’ . . .
after the grief.
I appreciate change in my life as it challenges me and strip me of my comfort level and make me think or force me to take action outside the box. It broadens my horizon or perspective and make me to be grateful for the opportunities given to end one direction and turn directions to new adventures, beginnings, opportunities, surroundings, environments … meeting new beings or developing new level of friendship or more depth in relationship, new taste bud palette …. Change can be good or not so good but it is a lesson to be learned and for this I am grateful for the process.
Change can bring me a fresh perspective.
Change shakes me out of complacency.
Change eventually settles into “the way things are now”.
Change helps me evolve and grow, whether I like it or not.
Change reminds me I’m adaptable and resilient.
Change is inevitable so in a way it’s a constant, reliable.
Change brings me new seasons every year.
Change brings me things I didn’t even know I wanted.
My normal response to change, is to resist it. It seems baked in. But, I am learning, slowly, that I can change. I have changed. Like walking through fire, it’s not something that comes easy. It’s that risk of the unknown. All I can say is, make a list, and make a promise to yourself, and start right now.
I think it’s one of the hardest things to do, as a thinking person. As I mechanically do my practices, change is happening. Sometimes I only notice when I look back. For a while, I referred to myself as “the new me”. It helped to curb old habits.
I use this approach, too, Charlie, specifically when trying to cue the people who know me to changes I am choosing – hopefully to have made, and sometimes still to be working toward….. I will say to them, “Old Carol would have x-y-z’d, but New Carol doesn’t want to do that anymore. New Carol….. etc etc” . It is a way of reinforcing it to myself, but also pointing out to those around me that I do not want their opinions of me to be locked in to what they think they know…. how they hold me to an older way of being that they think they understand, but are missing out on what’s new! It can be my energy or reactions – “Old Carol would have been annoyed by that, but New Carol would rather let it be fine and enjoy the difference!” A classic and much more concrete example is from old friends or acquaintances who want to share with me that they know I am a late sleeper. That was true for forty years of working late or night shifts and long hours, double-backs, etc…. I haven’t done that for many years now, but some family or friends still think they “know” that about me. I really need to point out to them that there has been a big change … “Actually , I love being up before dawn now. I look forward to getting to bed early and then I love those morning hours that feel like they are all mine before the sun comes up”. Sometimes people just stare at me and you can watch them having a hard time comprehending that change….. in what they “know” about me!!! I might point out to them, “It took three years before I learned how to sleep at night and wake-up awake …. and now I LOVE it!”
I am intrigued by this concept of identity…. our own and how others hold us……but that’s a whole ‘nuther topic!!!! Thanks for letting me expound here, community. That is one way for changes of my choosing to come to me.🙏….at least New Carol hopes so!!!
I love all of this. Put words to something I feel so often when people make assumptions about me. What I like what I don’t like and how I move through the world. Both acknowledging the new me but also stating it out loud is a wonderful idea! Bless you, New Carol!
good to think about this. Hopefully change brings awareness of opportunity – broadly, change brings opportunity to make different conscious choices. Choices and decisions that align with allowing us to feel most grateful for who we are being, and how, as Mary O said….we are living “this one wild and precious life”.
appreciating you, Grateful Community – I hope the spirit of Valentine’s Day can be held in a lovely little chamber of its own inside our metaphorical hearts and scattered out in to our everydayness now….. something like feeding corn to chickens every morning!🤞👋
Change, to me, is like the difficult teacher whose class you dread but who, in hindsight, taught you more than anyone else could. It catalyzes different ways of seeing, new kinds of thoughts, new understandings. It brings out different aspects of myself, and by doing so, when handled with awareness and support, it accelerates healing. Change forces me to confront my own death. It compels me to remember and to respect the experiences of others. I resist change, but it is a powerful teacher, so I work to respect and humble myself before it.
Change brings about new opportunities and new perspectives. If I can remember that everything changes, that can also help me be more appreciative of and present to what I have in this present moment, realizing that it will not last.
As we all know the famous saying ‘Change is Constant’, change can be good, change can be bad…
What I appreciate about change is the opportunity for something new perhaps, perhaps a different perspective
I appreciate the change in weather.
I appreciate each Daily Question will change.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone. .
Change,for me is like, fingernails on a chalkboard. If I change my perspective it can be creativity, learning, beauty and experimental.
This is a very interesting question. The amaryllis blooms give me more pleasure than the bulb form. My students would not achieve their successes without their new approach to reading skills.
Humm maybe I like changing more than I think.
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Growth. I love it.
A fresh start. A new opportunity. Growth. A chance to mourn. A chance to reflect.
Thank you Carol for your comment, citing Mirabai Starr. To decide “… to walk through this world looking through the eyes of love, then anything and everything that we do with the intention and attention on the sacred, including our most difficult experiences, counts and belongs” could not have said more precisely about the motivation to be open to change. And it is needed to open up to this, for me as well as it is for our world and all beyond. Welcoming change is the way for all to unfold to this eternal beauty and peace for all, now and always. Thank you all for your engaged and heartfelt comments. May all be blessed.
A former VP at my company once said ” As long as you can embrace change” you have job security at this organization. I have been with the company going on 11 years. Prior to that I felt little job security over many years. It was refreshing to hear. Change challenges us and offers opportunities to learn . I choose to embrace change even though my initial reaction is not to.
All I can say is that change is inevitable- nothing would be possible if change didn’t happen.
I am grateful that I’ve had so much practice at change.
No, seriously. I did not have the privilege (if that’s what it is) of growing up in the same neighborhood, going to school and church with the same people, never going out of my comfort zone unless it was for entertainment’s sake. I haven’t always worked doing the same thing. I’ve moved and traveled all over most of the Eastern United States and a good chunk of the Western. I’ve never had the resources to travel to foreign lands (except for a brief visit to Juarez, Mexico years ago and a couple forays into Toronto, Ontario as a kid). I used to resent it. But now, in the Second Half of Life, I am so glad that’s how my life worked out.
If I’d had all that stability, all that consistency, this world and this time might drive me over the edge. Or worse, I’d double down and try desperately to make the reality of this uncertain, rapidly changing world and time, fit into the tiny silo I’d defined as “normal.” I’m pretty sure I’d do that. Even with all that change, I still struggle to stop talking and listen to an opinion other than my own. I still catch myself looking down on people who don’t live as I do or think as I do. I still have to stop short when I notice myself thinking I know anything.
But I have the tools to do those things a little more easily than I would have done if my life, the life I’ve been given, had not been exactly the way it is.
Funny,
dear Dawn Elaine . . .
I have moved around for my whole life,
and took it as it came.
My nickname in junior high school
was ‘Gypsy’.
I am older now
and so tired of it now,
that whatever happens,
I want where I am now
to be my forever home.
No more moving for me.
You are right though . . .
Living in so many places
has taught me so much,
it has given me a broader world view,
built my endurance and compassion,
and even instilled in me
a liitle wisdom. ♥
I have a natural aversion to change,
much like the cats . . .
they like their routines
and stick pretty rigidly to them.
When the clocks change time twice a year
they wonder why supper is so early or so late . . .
it takes them a week or two
to adjust to the new time.
I don’t remember this happening
when I had dogs.
Even when looking forward to a positive change,
like packing to go to the ocean for a week,
I feel a certain amount of trepidation,
despite the fact that part of my heart
belongs there.
Home,
wherever that is,
is ultimately,
in the end,
where I want to be.
Changes that I love
are bringing home a cat from the shelter,
watching a new plant in the garden
grow and thrive,
seeing a bird I’ve never seen before
at the feeder or in the bird bath,
finding and refinishing a vintage dresser,
making new curtains for my windows.
There are different kinds of change . . .
the temporary ones that I’ve been writing about,
and forever changes,
like losing someone I love to illness,
moving across the country
or the world,
leaving a job or a career . . .
changes that we can’t undo.
These are harder.
Once I’ve accepted this
I can begin to lean into it,
open my eyes and heart to curiosity,
and slowly find my feet,
and embrace the ‘new normal’ . . .
after the grief.
beautiful, Sparrow.
thoughtful, solid, contemplative, relatable;
Rings with truths….
Appreciated.
Thank you,
dear Carol Ann . . .
you speak truth to me too.
There’s not enough of that
in the world today. ♥
My sentiments exactly. Thanks, Sparrow…and Carol Ann.
🙂
I also thank you.
The divine in me
bows to the divine in you. 🙏🏽
I appreciate change in my life as it challenges me and strip me of my comfort level and make me think or force me to take action outside the box. It broadens my horizon or perspective and make me to be grateful for the opportunities given to end one direction and turn directions to new adventures, beginnings, opportunities, surroundings, environments … meeting new beings or developing new level of friendship or more depth in relationship, new taste bud palette …. Change can be good or not so good but it is a lesson to be learned and for this I am grateful for the process.
Change can bring me a fresh perspective.
Change shakes me out of complacency.
Change eventually settles into “the way things are now”.
Change helps me evolve and grow, whether I like it or not.
Change reminds me I’m adaptable and resilient.
Change is inevitable so in a way it’s a constant, reliable.
Change brings me new seasons every year.
Change brings me things I didn’t even know I wanted.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem posted today speaks to this question: “Love Poem to the Things I Never Dreamt I Could Love” https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2025/02/15/love-poem-to-the-things-i-never-dreamt-i-could-love/.
My normal response to change, is to resist it. It seems baked in. But, I am learning, slowly, that I can change. I have changed. Like walking through fire, it’s not something that comes easy. It’s that risk of the unknown. All I can say is, make a list, and make a promise to yourself, and start right now.
I think it’s one of the hardest things to do, as a thinking person. As I mechanically do my practices, change is happening. Sometimes I only notice when I look back. For a while, I referred to myself as “the new me”. It helped to curb old habits.
I use this approach, too, Charlie, specifically when trying to cue the people who know me to changes I am choosing – hopefully to have made, and sometimes still to be working toward….. I will say to them, “Old Carol would have x-y-z’d, but New Carol doesn’t want to do that anymore. New Carol….. etc etc” . It is a way of reinforcing it to myself, but also pointing out to those around me that I do not want their opinions of me to be locked in to what they think they know…. how they hold me to an older way of being that they think they understand, but are missing out on what’s new! It can be my energy or reactions – “Old Carol would have been annoyed by that, but New Carol would rather let it be fine and enjoy the difference!” A classic and much more concrete example is from old friends or acquaintances who want to share with me that they know I am a late sleeper. That was true for forty years of working late or night shifts and long hours, double-backs, etc…. I haven’t done that for many years now, but some family or friends still think they “know” that about me. I really need to point out to them that there has been a big change … “Actually , I love being up before dawn now. I look forward to getting to bed early and then I love those morning hours that feel like they are all mine before the sun comes up”. Sometimes people just stare at me and you can watch them having a hard time comprehending that change….. in what they “know” about me!!! I might point out to them, “It took three years before I learned how to sleep at night and wake-up awake …. and now I LOVE it!”
I am intrigued by this concept of identity…. our own and how others hold us……but that’s a whole ‘nuther topic!!!! Thanks for letting me expound here, community. That is one way for changes of my choosing to come to me.🙏….at least New Carol hopes so!!!
I love all of this. Put words to something I feel so often when people make assumptions about me. What I like what I don’t like and how I move through the world. Both acknowledging the new me but also stating it out loud is a wonderful idea! Bless you, New Carol!
New Carol to Dear Carly:
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
thank you!!!!🙏🙏🙏
good to think about this. Hopefully change brings awareness of opportunity – broadly, change brings opportunity to make different conscious choices. Choices and decisions that align with allowing us to feel most grateful for who we are being, and how, as Mary O said….we are living “this one wild and precious life”.
appreciating you, Grateful Community – I hope the spirit of Valentine’s Day can be held in a lovely little chamber of its own inside our metaphorical hearts and scattered out in to our everydayness now….. something like feeding corn to chickens every morning!🤞👋
Change, to me, is like the difficult teacher whose class you dread but who, in hindsight, taught you more than anyone else could. It catalyzes different ways of seeing, new kinds of thoughts, new understandings. It brings out different aspects of myself, and by doing so, when handled with awareness and support, it accelerates healing. Change forces me to confront my own death. It compels me to remember and to respect the experiences of others. I resist change, but it is a powerful teacher, so I work to respect and humble myself before it.
Change brings about new opportunities and new perspectives. If I can remember that everything changes, that can also help me be more appreciative of and present to what I have in this present moment, realizing that it will not last.
As we all know the famous saying ‘Change is Constant’, change can be good, change can be bad…
What I appreciate about change is the opportunity for something new perhaps, perhaps a different perspective
I appreciate the change in weather.
I appreciate each Daily Question will change.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone. .
Change,for me is like, fingernails on a chalkboard. If I change my perspective it can be creativity, learning, beauty and experimental.
This is a very interesting question. The amaryllis blooms give me more pleasure than the bulb form. My students would not achieve their successes without their new approach to reading skills.
Humm maybe I like changing more than I think.
I embrace change a whole lot more than I used to and appreciate the new opportunities and new perspectives that it always offers.