Change: a practice & a promise.
What do I do — with my one wild and precious life? Mary Olivers prompts us to ponder.
I’m writing this during mercury retrograde, an upcoming Aquarius full moon, and a Mars-Jupiter-Saturn conjunction and square. In the astrology world, this is cosmic energy that is chaotic, challenging, and dramatic. Where everything goes a little sideways, systems crack, and it all feels too big to hold. We humans might feel unsettled, hot headed, angry, indecisive. Conversations could feel reactionary, frustrating, incomplete in the the way they never arrive to a conclusion or understanding.
The energy around us is changing.
While initially writing this, I had to pause. Many times words would not come. To support my creative flow, I read. I’m currently reading Emergent Strategy: shaping change, shaping worlds by adrienne maree brown, and the chapter I left open was: Intentional Adaptation: how we change.
My intention this week is to share thoughts and lean into practices that support us to meet these chaotic moments, and inevitable future challenging times, from a place of letting go of “control” in order to embrace change, practice adaption, and feel free to fail for the sake of growth. For me, this perspective makes space for big magic, plenty of possibility, and self-confidence that comes after weathering a storm.
The wheel of fortune card in the tarot reminds us: the only real constant is change.
From emergent strategy by adrienne maree brown, “Adaptation: a change in a plant or animal that makes it better able to live in a particular place or situation;
Many of us respond to change with fear, or see it as a crisis. Some of us anticipate change with an almost delaying sense of stress. We spend precious time thinking about what has changed that we didn’t choose or cannot control, and/or thinking ahead to future stress. As an individual, developing your capacity for adaptation, can mean assessing your default reactions to change, and whether those reactions create space for opportunity, possibility, and continuing to move towards your vision.”
In the context of the yoga asana practice, to me that looks like exploring challenging shapes and transitions that are different than what I am currently comfortable and confident with. Challenging might mean many things, such as the addition of a prop, adjusting the pace or style of yoga, or playing in a pose you simply rarely practice. This work demands a lesson in accepting a less than perfect practice and something new to work on. This approach to practice cultivates adaptation, which I believe is a beautiful skill to work with during our time on our yoga mat.
When we practice the same pose, style, pace, transitions repeatedly, yes there is value in feeling safe in practice but growth (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) likely plateaus. Presence is required and expansion expected in novelty movements or sensations. In these moments, we experience deeper self-trust and fresh affirmation of commitment after we do things differently.
I love how I feel when I engage with new shapes, paces or transitions because it truly challenges my mental, physical and spiritual strength and I feel so accommplished.
My vision for myself and all beings is: to trust this wild and precious life is an opportunity to discover more about our world and our Self in divine process; to expand the landscape of our mind to feel our fullest expression of freedom.
Intentional transformation requires intentional adaptation. Be open to releasing what is no longer serving you and your vision for the future. Be open to embracing what seems scary to step into a new purposeful version of you.
What needs to be set free to make space for what can provide true support? It could be letting go of (or setting a boundary with) a habit, a friend, a narrative, a job, an identity, or reminders of the past. Just as the seasons must change, situations come to a conclusion, lives are lost and grieved, time ticks away, and the energies around and within us shift.
“Like tuning into the natural operating systems of the universe and being humbled, as opposed to barreling through and against all the change.”
Make it a practice: to embrace change and be humbled by her.
Make it a promise: accept the change to move toward the vision.
The paradox of change is how it can feel like a blessing — or a freaking curse almighty! And that can shift within an hour.
I think about the ending of a romantic relationship or the loss of something that once held deep meaning. I know how challenging or comforting the loss can feel, depending on the day, mood, weather, or how busy we are to notice.
What we always need is time and space to respond to the change from a place of hope, acceptance, and optimism. You might need a few deep breaths, a good long walk, a loud cry, a friend to call, or simply get some sleep. When you let the change flow for a moment, you give the body’s systems time to process. When you give yourself time, you create the potential for intentional adaptation and true transformation.
Then it becomes about our relationship to change, we get to choose to create and cultivate magic and possibility, or softly surrender to feel the grief and heartbreak. Both can transform us. Choose what serves that breath or that moment. It takes strong self trust and faith that it’s all a universal dance bringing us toward to our highest vision for our future.
Humans appreciate consistency, a sense of control and thrive in regular work, relationships, and rituals. But in many cases, we eventually get bored and our relationships need variety and new energy as well. Not only are humans wired for safety, we are wired to adapt. If we can anchor into the safety and protection our physical world and body offers us, we can become catalysts, warriors, promises, and educators of evolution and change. Humans sleep, eat, love and die. Liberation energy moves from root to crown. You must feel safe to dream of some thing different.
People are patterns as much as we are disruptors.
“Nature has taught me about fluid adaptability. About not only weathering storms, but using howling winds to spread seeds wide, torrential rains to nurture roots so they can grow deeper and stronger. Nature has taught me that a storm can be used to clear out branches that are dying, to let go of that which was keeping us from growing in new directions. These are lessons we need for organizing. As Octavia taught us, the only lasting truth is change. We will face social and political storms we could not even imagine. The question becomes not just how do we survive them, but how do we prepare so when we do suddenly find ourselves in the midst of an unexpected onslaught, we can capture the potential, the possibilities inherent in the chaos, and write it like dawn skimming the horizon?”
The practice is where you consistently show up to things that support your precious life: rest, movement, health, love, connections. The practice of these rituals reveal to us when it’s time to make new promises to our growing hearts that invite change and desire for a wild and expansive life. When we bow, surrender, trust the change, rather than resist, fight, force staying the same, it’s easier to embrace what is waiting on the horizon. Change — fear it, embrace it, understand it, love it or hate it — start to understand your relationship to it.
Were you craving change today?
Promise yourself you are safe to change. This promise can be tender, soft, creative. Promise to be playful, vulnerable, magical, challenged, and imperfect in all upcoming changes.
Notice the way your body responds when you think of these elements of your life expanding:
Change in abundance.
Change in a relationship.
Change at home.
Change for health.
Change in how you spend your time.
Change in your energy and attention.
Take some time to pause and reflect on what surfaced when you read this.
What practices can you commit to support the intentional transformation you seek? What personal promises guide your future vision and support intentional adaptation?
It’s the order of the day, to aspire to have an abundant life filled with all our desires — or to simply be ourselves in the constant change and flow.
We are all examples and mirrors of what we’re capable of in this life.
Change is beautiful. Change is life.
Let’s not only embrace it, but encourage each other to believe change for the better is completely possible — together.
After reading, if you crave a guided grounding, enjoy this body scan meditation I recorded for the purpose of coming back into the body to respond to life from a balanced, centered space. Enjoy!
