Change is Shift Between Two Possibilities

I’m midstream right now. In transition and not sure how things will go, but too busy swimming hard to feel too nervous. But a little nervous. For sure a little nervous. There is a low-level discomfort here in the middle zone.

I know it’s all unavoidable change, uncertainty, transition. I mean, look at the evidence: You are older today than you were yesterday, no matter what age your hair color says you are. You learn things; discover new people and challenges and opportunities. Perhaps, in an incredible display of awareness, you realize the kids should not, probably, eat peanut butter for EVERY meal, so you throw in a scrambled egg, you know, just to mix it up.

Energy is always moving and so we move, from one place to another in our hearts and minds and bodies and sometimes, from one end of the couch to the other – and we NEED to do this. Growth, creativity, expansion. It’s part of who we are as a species. Yet it leaves us nail-biting nervous and worried, and uncomfortable, like when our jeans are too tight after a big meal and we’re wondering if we can pop the button under our blouse without anyone having a clue. Just sayin’. It could happen.

When we shift off the place we know, away from the thing we finally got really good at, to who knows what, it feels stressful and TOTALLY ANNOYING.

Shifting into Uncertainty

Seriously. I just figured out how to do THIS job, now you go and change it on me? I was really good at being single, THEN I met him and had to figure all that relationshippy stuff out? I FINALLY got in the groove, (a few years late) of mothering a 6-year-old and now all of a sudden, she 9?! And listening to, what is that, Gangsta Rap. What the heck am I supposed to do with nine?  I can’t even come up with a new recipe. Thanks A LOT Universe.

These transitions mean we are always newbies on some level, trying to figure out how to adapt to the next shift. And that just makes me so tired.

But here’s the other thing: THAT CHANGE IS SO GOOD.

Change Brings the Good Stuff Too

Because while life will dose us up on drama, the things we LOVE MOST in our lives have also come out of this kind of transition and change. We fear and fumble around when we think of change and transition, but transition is simply the moving-forward mechanism that took us from permed and feathered to blowouts. See? All good.

This means you can STOP worrying about it. Whether you like it or not, you are TOTALLY GOOD at this change and transition stuff. You’ve had a ton of practice and it’s WORKED out.

Change and transition have taken you from crawling to walking, from diapers to using the bathroom while people are hollering through the door at you (Maybe that’s just me).  You have gone from walking to driving and from singledom to married-dom and sometimes, back again.

It was a change that took you from illness back HEALTH, from high to sober, and from work to layoffs to a DREAM job. From heartbreak to love. It is the link between dark and light.

Path Between Possibilities

Transition is simply the path between possibilities.

I’m swimming now in the middle of some minor transitions. Nothing big or scary, but things that have got me thinking. This is good because while I’m midstream, I get a better view of the shore.

There is clarity here in the middle because you can see both sides of the river. It gives you a chance to get clear about what matters to you, what you value and which way you are going to go.

And then, when you edge up close to that side of the river, the one you haven’t  been on before, you’ll climb out and take baby steps up the bank until you find a sunny patch and strip off your wet clothes and lay down, while a cute cabana boy serves you a mai tai – OR, perhaps you’ll find yourself lying in your wet jeans next to me. In a muddy spot. Too exhausted from swimming to walk another step. We’ll lay there a bit, like beached whales. Sand in our hair, dirt on our chin. And once we’ve caught our breaths, we will roll over and just get up. We will GET UP and do the NEXT BEST THING.

Because in the transition, the muddy middle ground, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO is take the next right action. Do the thing that makes sense RIGHT NOW. You don’t have to have skills, you don’t have to know outcomes. You don’t even have to know what will happen 17 minutes from now, you just do the next best thing and it moves you.

That’s all. Call a friend, take a nap, say a prayer, send a thank you, make a call or a list or a drink. Enroll. Hug. Laugh.

And trust me on this YOU WILL KNOW just what the next baby step will be. You will know the next best step because you have been here before in the middle and you know to get up and get moving. And you can do that.

You can do it just fine.