Growing through change

When we go through big life changes, it is often quite destabilising. The roles we’ve had, the identity we’ve known, as well as what know and believe about the world and ourselves are all called into question.

Feeling destabilised, disoriented, confused or overwhelmed is not comfortable. It can be really intense and painful.

And I believe that these times of change and transition are incredible opportunities for us.

Identity and roles. Our day-to-day routines. When they are things we know and can rely on, they can provide us with a great sense of safety. Even if we don’t even like our roles and routine. Just knowing what they are gives us a sense of understanding. And knowing our place in the world. They help keep us focused because we know what we’re supposed to do.

You may already see that having the pieces of our lives so set, while stabilising and safe, also really limits us.

And so the opportunity of questioning and changing our roles and identities is one of expanding ourselves and our limitations. To know ourselves and our lives as more than our previous boundaries. More than our roles and identities.

In order to apprehend these opportunities, to grow and expand and have more choice in our lives, we have to feel safe enough.

Are you seeing the probable dilemma? If we’ve gotten our sense of safety from knowing who we are, what life is, and what we’re supposed to do (which is pretty common source of safety for many of us), and that’s been dismantled, then how can we feel safe enough to see the possibilities in the changes we’re going through??

And here’s our opportunity to find a deeper sense of grounding and safety. That doesn’t depend on identities, roles and routines (that are always changeable anyway)…

As you continue to read this, I invite you to turn your attention to what you’re sitting, standing or lying on.

Feel where you’re making contact with what’s beneath you.

Feel the texture, the temperature of it. Whether against your skin or through clothes or shoes.

Begin to feel the solidity of whatever it is that’s beneath you.

Notice that however much weight you give what’s beneath you, it continues to hold you up.

Sense how whatever it is that’s beneath you - furniture, the floor - is supported by what’s beneath it.

And beneath all the furniture, floors, buildings, begin to sense the earth beneath it all.

As you tune into this solid earth, always beneath you and supporting you, begin to notice the shape of your body on top of its support.

Notice how your body rises up from the base of support. How the solid bones inside you hold your shape.

Feeling now the solidity of your support, of the earth, and how your bones are always holding you up.

Begin now to notice your movements.

Whether it’s the subtle movement of your breath or your movement in space.

Notice how your shape changes.

Notice how your contact with the support beneath you changes.

Yet the support beneath and within is always there. As you move and change.

Solid below and solid within.

It is through our bodies and their sensorial connection to the present moment that we can cultivate a deeper and more resilience sense of grounding, safety and support. Through simple exercises, like the one above, and countless others (that need only take a moment of our attention), we continually build this stronger sense within ourselves. And it’s from this capacity to ground and regulate through our bodies, that we can more easily move through changes and welcome the unknown.

As we practice cultivating this connection, we strengthen what I like to refer to as our inner compass. A deeper sense of what’s right for us in this moment by feeling what’s alive right now for us. Not yesterday or tomorrow. Or what our roles or identities dictate. But the living, breathing, moving self right now. Who may be between things. Who doesn’t yet know where they’re going. Or how to reconcile the old and new.

And you don’t need to know. Because it hasn’t happened yet. What there is to know right here, right now, is the grounding available in this moment through this body. And when we can feel truly grounded and connected, we can take the next step. And the next step. And, before we know it, we’ve moved into a new reality we could have never imagined from where we were before.