The season of fall stirs up our love-hate relationship with change. After a tentative and uncertain summer, we’d love to return to some familiar and comfortable routines. But as the days are shorter and the nights are longer, fall reminds us that change is good, if not beautiful and exciting.
Crazy-Good Change
Whether it’s in our body, mind, or spirit our lives keep changing. If we’re growing (and hopefully we are) we may experience some growing pains. So we look for role models, discipline, prayer, and even magic wands to help us through our transitions in life.
But transitions can make us crazy. I have stopped wondering why people are crazy and instead wonder why they’re not! Sometimes a little “crazy” is just what we need if it means losing our minds long enough to let our hearts and “Soul” lead us toward the best transitions of our lives.
Get ready to change the way you see change:
Positive Change Demands Truth
The best way we can support ongoing healthy change is to be straight with ourselves and each other. We’re at a stage in life where we can cut through empty small talk.
Healthy transitions demand integrity as the key component for accepting change and expecting good things from it. If we want to keep growing, remember: no denials, no rationalizations, and no deceptions.
Honesty doesn’t have to be painful. Helpful honesty merges truth with kindness and compassion within all your relationships, especially the one with yourself. So don’t “fake it until you make it.”
Truly, life is about more than just getting by and barely making it, isn’t it? This is our time to transition with an authenticity that creates meaning and satisfaction.
Change Happens
Remember that even when nothing seems to be happening, something always is. This is difficult for most of us to accept, especially for those who so eagerly worshiped at the altar of productivity and so easily mistook busyness for progress.
Slowing down is not the same thing as winding down. Change moves at different heartbeats but the heart must keep beating. So listen to your heart, as a famous song advises. What is it telling you?
Change Should Revive Us, Not Deprive Us
I’ve been criticized for going down a lot of rabbit holes in my life. I’ve been asked if I lost my focus or if I couldn’t be satisfied and content with what I had.
The truth is, my life is about “trying it all.” I’ve gone down about a million professional and personal roads in life and many of them haven’t looked successful in typical ways. But my satisfaction and success were, and still are, defined by trying new experiences that make me feel fully alive.
I’ve never given up on my endeavors as much as I’ve added on to them. And as much as I like comfortable routines, they can suck the life out of me, too. Transitions don’t always mean giving things up. Go ahead, live it up!
Transitions Make You Feel Alive
Sometimes the seemingly un-survivable moments in our lives create a white-water current that sweeps us toward who we are meant to be. The transitions we still need as we age aren’t those that chase some version of settling down. They are the ones that make us feel most alive.
Don’t settle for less. Find your signature move for this time of your life that represents the YOU that you were created to be and haven’t given up on.
Transitions don’t have to feel like a life or death battle. This year stop fighting the battles you’ve already won. You know the ones I’m talking about: the wars you wage to earn love and approval from yourself and others.
The life you need to strive for is the one that stares down mediocrity and believes your personal best is yet to come. This is YOUR best, not someone else’s best.
Transitions Are Brave
I’ve lost, found, and lost again my health and many of my homes, jobs, and friends. Life isn’t always comfortable or easy. The easy part should be using our experiences to lighten the hardships and heartaches of others.
We don’t always get the fairy tale. But we get the “happily ever after” when we see each stage of our life with the potential to be brave. As T.S. Eliot said, “Only those who risk going too far can find out how far one can go.”
Be brave. Be your best. And when you’re “old” (or just a little older) you’ll savor the life that hasn’t disappointed you. You deserve this kind of life. You know I’m right. Transition from today to the kind of tomorrow you want.
As this season’s days are growing shorter and cooler, embrace the transitions that make you feel a little more alive. The leaves keep changing, and so can you. Be brave. Be true. Be you.
How do you feel about all the transitions you are going through right now? Which transitions command you to be brave? What do you want to be known for? What have you learned from going down different rabbit holes? Let’s have a discussion in the comment section below.
