What is your relationship with CHANGE?

Yoga, the Moon & Me: One yogi's musings on travel, spirituality, the moon and life!

Yoga, the Moon & ME ~ Podcast

Episode 7

What is your Relationship with CHANGE?

Have you noticed lately that people are identifying as “Change Makers” or Change Agents? We used to put our job title under our names, but that seems to be shifting… Are we a generation of more open mindedness?

Let’s go to the definition:

• A change agent, or agent of change, is someone who promotes and enables change to happen within any group or organization. In business, a change agent is an individual who promotes and supports a new way of doing something within the company.

To be honest, I think we have to be in the very fast paced world we are living in. Now more than ever I think we humans need to be open to the idea of change. Change is a sure thing. There will always be change. How we deal with change is the optional part. (Taking a thought from Neil Pasricha’s book “You are AWESOME”) I think that 2023 is asking us to live our lives like an open ended sentence rather than using the finality of a period. To be happy and thrive in this current world, we need to become the dot dot dot…at the end of the sentence. Open ended…more to come…not closing ourselves off to any great thought or opportunity that might come your way.

So, how do you feel about change? Close your eyes for a moment and think of a time that you experienced a big life change.

• Maybe a change in school
• or a move to a different town.
• Maybe you moved to a new apartment
• or got a different job.
• Maybe you ended a relationship
• or started a new one.
• Maybe you walked away from a safe and secure career to follow your dream.

Take a moment and revisit your experience. How did you feel going into that change?

What emotions arose for you. Was it excitement? Or was it fear? Or maybe a little bit of both?

Looking at these situations with the benefit of hindsight, you can likely see that that change was for the best no matter how uncomfortable it may have felt at the time. You closed one door and sure enough, another and likely better one opened up for you.

So why do so many of us humans resist change?

It’s that fear of the unknown isn’t it…that makes change so scary. What’s that saying…It’s the devil that you know.

How many people do you know that stay in a job that they don’t really love or in a relationship that no longer brings them joy because they aren’t quite sure what the other side would look like. I think we have all done it at some point in our lives. And then we look back after we muster up the courage to make the change and say, “I don’t know why I waited so long to leave the job or move from the house or exit the toxic relationship. I’m so happy now.”

Whenever I’m doing a deep dive on a topic, I love to head over to the dictionary to get the OG meaning. So here we go:

Change definition:

• As a verb ~ to make different in some particular way, to become different, to undergo transformation, transition, or substitution

• As a noun ~ the act or instance of making or becoming different.

And then of course there is wisdom regarding change from almost every visionary…

Albert Einstein said….”The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”

Heraclitus said, “There is nothing permanent except change.”

And a little more recently…

Barack Obama said…“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

Change is inevitable. Change means that you are growing and evolving. There are very few things in this world that ever just stay the same. Look at nature and the seasons that bring about change. Think of most life cycles…birth, life, death and rebirth.

Change is necessary. It is part of this earthly experience.

If the thought of change brings up huge feelings of resistance for you, then you are fighting against the universal flow of energy. And that can make life difficult and really unsatisfying.

Look at this quote from Socrates “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

Change is kind of like black licorice, either you love it or you really don’t!

Let’s look at those two teams and how they live their lives. So the first team, I have called Change Junkies…

In some aspects of my life, I would say I have been a bit of, well maybe not a junkie, but definitely a change apassionato.

If I have a car for more than 2 years that is really a big deal. I get tired of the same and want something new. Not new… new. I’m not one to keep up with the Jones and have the newest model out on the market..but something new and different to me. I get bored easily. It could also be a case of the grass is always greener …I’m not sure.

It’s no secret that I haven’t (until now) been wildly successful with my love relationships. And I have never been afraid to make a change in my social status if the relationship is no longer filling my cup or bringing me joy. I just think that life is too short to not be really fucking happy.

Now, I have actually lived in the same house for going on 23 years and that doesn’t really fit my change profile but I think I have wanted that one piece of consistency for my boys. As a kid I only ever lived in one house. My parents actually just sold it about 8 or so years ago and I really appreciated that aspect of consistency and grounding in my life. So I think I have tried to do the same for my boys. Afterall, it’s me that loves change and they might not have the same relationship to it.

So back to team one…the Change Junkie.

I would define these people as:

• someone who embraces and leans into change
• They tend to live a faith based life rather than fear based
  • To clarify not faith as in religion, rather, trusting that the universe will provide the best possible outcome for them
• These are the people that don’t worry so much about what people thing and are okay with pivoting or redirecting if life isn’t working out the way they want it to
• These people listen to their gut instincts and go with what their subconscious or higher self is encouraging them to do

To sum it up, they are going for it! The job, the car, the house, the relationship. No amount of fear is going to stop them from getting what they want out of life.

Then we have team two… the Change Resistors

These people love the comfort of the familiar. They love routine and consistency in their lives. For them these aspects feel like that wonderfully worn-in...