How to Embrace Change

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."--Anais Nin

Change is a constant.  


Some we choose--though willingness doesn't imply ease.  (I chose a divorce, and it was one of the most wrenching experiences of my life.)


Some enter our lives without will or warning. (Our landlord has decided to sell the house we've lived in for four years, a place we'd hoped to be at least a few years longer.)


And in either case, fighting change is a natural and fruitless enterprise.  In both my personal life and in witness to the lives of so many others in transition, I've found the most graceful and energetically useful thing we can do when faced with change is to understand the stages of transformation, and Lean In. The Stages of Transformation, Butterfly Style Such an obvious and excellent metaphor, the butterfly's transition can be looked at in four phases:


1.  Pre-liminal:  The caterpillar.  This is where you begin when the impulse or impetus for change overtakes you.  To fight change, for a caterpillar, is death.  Instead, this phase requires an alignment with your deeper self, spirit and a commitment to practices that keep you grounded (see Tools for Transformation for more on this).


2.  Chrysalis:  This is the phase I have been in for a while now with Vestal Transitions.  There was a new vision wanting to come through, a new way of offering, but without stillness I couldn't hear what was trying to develop.  


The Chrysalis phase is one of retreat, of self-care, art and dreaming.  It is often the hardest phase for many of us to occupy--we want the change to be over, we want the new form now!  But until we slow down and allow the voices and expectations of others to fall away, we can't really hear our soul's longing. 3.  Emergence--What is created in the chrysalis can no longer stay dormant.  This is the energy of the sprouting seed, the birth, an egg cracking with the chick inside.


I'm in this phase with my business transition, what I've been gestating for the last few months is newly shaped and the chrysalis just cracked open yesterday (in fact).  There is so much excitement in emergence, it is important to remember that it takes tremendous energy and strength to bring forward a new form.  Continuing to practice active self-care and harnessing your resource network is vital to a smooth emergence.  


This is the place to ask for help, and say yes anytime anyone offers.


4.  Flight--Public delight, recovery, acceptance, return...
Flight is not the end of change, but a new beginning.  Maybe for a time you will soar on wings of ease through soft winds and pines.  But inevitably there will be a new form creating itself elsewhere.  Life begets life, each beginning is an ending, each ending a beginning.  Flight is a time of gratitude, knowing that our living isn't linear, that you will be called to adventure again the cycle of death, descent, rebirth. Embracing change means leaning in to the now, the moment, what is.  Even if it is painful.  Even if it is uncomfortable.  The more we resist change and the more fear we bring to the process of our own unfolding, the more constricted our lives become.


When we open to change and see our lives as a continuous spiral of opportunities, we can find our place in each day with love.  With ease.


I'll have some pretty exciting emergence announcements of my own up in the next week or so, along with destinations, deals and secret project previews...


Until then, may we be open.