Change - The middle phase in life ...

A time of transition

I find myself scratching my head and wondering how it can possibly be June.

The last few months have disappeared in a blur of relentless stress evoking problems between the car, the house and the cat. I haven’t been able to see straight let alone think clearly, or write anything.

It is as if I have been stuck in some kind of an internal ‘updating in process’ mode whilst trudging my way through the external stuff.

In the midst of these problems, I lost sight of myself, my vision, my passion, my courage and at times, my God. I am most grateful to all those who were able to remind and re-ground me during this time.

But now, it is as if the storm has spat me back out only to realise that a quarter of the year has passed since I last looked up let alone out!

And the view all round is remarkably different.

Fortunately I was able to take a few days out to recover by reuniting myself with the soothing sights and sounds of beautiful sun drenched seascapes. Yes, even in England. Summer may have been late but it has finally arrived. For now, at least.

My soul could relax once more.

As if to symbolise the previous few months, the day before I headed for the coast, I discovered myself or rather my t-shirt to have been the landing place for a bird’s you know what. Something I noticed as I sat in my garden following a run in the fields. Oh well, I thought, it isn’t the first time a bird has unleashed its insides on me and it probably wont be the last.

However, I wasn’t expecting another onslaught the very next day whilst wandering by the sea! It was only when I touched my dress that the wet dripping white stuff I came in to contact with alerted me to the fact that I had been hit again!

Seriously, what are the chances of having two consecutive days across two different locations resulting in two successful splats from the winged of the species? I actually turned to Google to check out the odds! I discovered that it is apparently more likely that I would win the lottery. Not to mention preferable! And no, I did not buy a ticket and yes I probably should have!

This encounter pretty much summed up my experience of the previous three months!

But, these experiences also reminded me that I could (eventually) clean myself down, pick myself up and continue along my way!

Ditto when I came off my bike this week! After landing in a crumpled triangle with my legs in the air, I clocked three pairs of human eyes all on me which was definitely not my most dignified of moments!

Yet as I cycled off, feeling embarrassed but physically unhurt, I could not help but reflect on the parallels of life. Sometimes, we fall, sometimes we look a bit stupid, sometimes we get hurt if only our pride, but does this mean that we should stand still and never move again just in case … ? Absolutely not!!!

And now as I look back, apart from thinking as I often do that hindsight would be wonderful if only it were to show up a little earlier, I can begin to see ahead with a little more clarity.

These past three months have not only shaken me to my core but they have also uprooted me from the comfort zone that I had not even realised I was entrenched in. I now see with new vision those things that I need to let go of and the actions required to move me from where I am to where I would like to be.

I am in transition.

It has not been a comfortable process to get here!

I now know that I can no longer stay long term in certain places but I’m yet to know where this process of movement and exploration will take me.

When I first began to emerge from the stress storm, I was consumed with fear, uncertainty and exhaustion. I felt clean out of energy, motivation, creativity, faith or courage. Basically all the essentials for embracing a transition!

And so, the extra self care afforded by sea staring therapy, immersing myself in the greenery of fields accompanied by a backdrop of birdsong and consuming disgustingly huge but delicious pieces of cakes cooked by local establishments have all allowed me to refuel my soul and spirit sufficiently to turn my recent realisations in to actions.

Naively, prior to this episode, I had assumed that I was super down with the whole not getting stuck in the comfort zone thing!

I am now humbly reminded that I was simply in between cycles! Right now, I am in the midst of yet another cycle of the human tendency to cling to the known! This in spite of all my training, personal and professional experience!! How good it is (eventually) to be liberated by the reminder that I am still, in all areas just as human as … the next human and just as much of a lifelong learner in spite of all those lessons I thought I had already learned!

All good grist for the mill a good friend reminded me! If only my mill didn’t seem to need quite so many top ups!

Anyway, I feel as if I have been shaken hard enough to get me to loosen my vicelike grip on the things that prevent me developing. As I do so, I begin, despite the accompanying fear, to move towards a time and place of new challenge, risk and growth.

Ultimately, a place of increased aliveness!

It scares me but now I am aware of a growing presence of excitement too. Accompanied by both of these and cheered on by those who remind me who I am and what I believe in, when I have forgotten, I will continue to explore the possible ways forward.

Within a Year

We are now well and truly into 2019. Yet, the theme of change remains, especially around the changes possible to achieve within a 12 month period.

Last week I stumbled upon something on line about a young couple who were hugely overweight. The narrator was drawing attention to the phenomenal following they had acquired as they shared their experience of losing weight over the course of a year.

Seemingly, they were incredibly honest about the reality of making these life changes. Through their hard work, commitment and discipline they were able to surpass their goals. By sharing their experience they were highlighting that such changes do not happen overnight or without cost.

As I reflected on the power of their experience to appeal to the masses, it occurred to me that whilst our culture promotes the illusion of the quick fix, deep within each of us lay the knowledge that this does not exist.

Of course, the idea of the instant cure or the miracle pill that takes away everything that we don’t want to think, feel or basically deal with is an incredibly alluring concept. But it is just that, a concept. Not a fact, nor reality. And furthermore, a concept if bought, that serves to keep us stuck where we don’t want to be.

If we want our lives to be different, we have to do the work of making them so.

We all like and some pray that the changes we want in our lives will drop out of the sky in to our laps with no effort required from us. But what really happens is that our lives look like whatever we have done with whatever has been dealt us.

And if we have spent many a year creating a life that we don’t like, then it is going to take a considerable amount of time to change that.

This sort of cold, hard but ultimately honest fact may deter some from trying to make changes. But, the time will pass regardless. All we get to choose is how we spend it. Invest in that which will take us closer to where we want to be, or expend energy trying to ignore being where we don’t want to be.

I think it is precisely because of the hard reality that change takes time, effort, courage and money, that so many shy away and give up without even trying.

But people like this couple on line showed that if change is possible for an ordinary couple like them, then it is equally possible for ordinary people like you and me.

I think their story is inspiring and encouraging.

And if the size of their following is anything to go by, so do many others.

It would seem that people are not just looking for the fantasy of the quick fix anymore but are actually seeking real life evidence that change can happen.

I guess the increasing number of films based on true stories is further evidence of this quest for that which is real.

As if to re-iterate the point, I accidentally caught a programme I haven’t seen before called, ‘This time next year,’ with Davina McCall. Several people were shown being interviewed a year earlier about the changes they wanted to make with regards to their weight, along with their motivation for doing so. Twelve months later they were interviewed again to share their progress.

Whilst most of these were motivated by some kind of threat to their health, all showed that change and progress are possible. Not easy. But with the right motivation and support, it is possible.

Change really can happen.

As the above examples illustrate if you’d care to look in to them, the amount of change that is possible with any twelve month period can be pretty staggering.

And, it doesn’t have to start in January. We can make a choice to start making steps towards change at any time. If we didn’t start in January, we have by no means missed the boat for 2019.

Right now is as good a time as any to get started.

Just imagine where it may be possible to be by this time next year.

The Easy Path

The above notion has come up a few times recently.

As people have spoken to me they have begun to notice that they are on an easy path, whether by choice or circumstance.

But as they begin to talk about this easy path, it becomes apparent that easy is serving as a smoke screen for boring, deadening and motivation for change, removing.

In short, it is not easy.

Perhaps it started out as easy at a time when easy was exactly what was needed.

But, somewhere along the path, it ceased to be easy.

Instead it became an illusion.

Or maybe a delusion.

But whichever ‘usion’, it is no longer one of ease.

It would appear that, that which initially appears to support us, has some kind of best before date. After which it ceases to evoke the best from within us. Instead it may cause us to trade our hunger for purpose, meaning or fulfilment for the illusion of ease.

If left unnoticed or unchallenged this easy path can slowly and subtly suck out our life blood along with any desire to persevere, grow, learn or take risks.

Ultimately, it can diminish our desire to really live. Not exist or endure, but live, as in fully.

If this happens, something within us shuts down and we begin a descent in to a zombie like state where we lose something of our capacity for full presence or participation.

We may become stuck on auto pilot, going through the motions without fully inhabiting our own experience.

If we remain here, this easy path can turn in to a bad relationship that slowly and subtly steals all confidence, leaving us unable to leave for fear of the alternative.

If this happens, our belief system may suffer.

Where we once believed that we could leave this path to do x, y or z, we may now believe that such an option is not available or viable, or that we are not capable. These new fear based beliefs may feel true enough to prevent us from even checking out their validity.

In short, the fear that attacks our beliefs may bind us to the very path that is stealing our vitality, joy, dreams and even our agency to bring about the very changes we desire.

Basically, we may become stuck on what has become a very ease free path.

Some people may call a rut. As in, you can’t go back, you can’t go forward. You are stuck in a deep rut.

When this realisation reveals itself, we do have a choice.

We can remain there. And adopt all manner of unhealthy behaviours to numb out the reality of doing so.

Or we can seek help to climb out of that rut and on to a new path.

Whilst help may come in different forms for us all, a failure to seek it will leave us knowing that we have traded our dreams or our values for the ease of a comfort zone that ceases to offer any comfort.

Once noticed, this sort of truth will nag away at us despite any efforts to suppress it. It may temporarily disappear but only to reappear a little later with a vengeance.

There are always choices.

Choose to stay and allow ourselves to becoming increasing disillusioned, disengaged and disenchanted with ourselves and our life.

Or, remind ourselves what is important and seek some support to do something about it.

If we can take steps towards a life that reflects our true values and desires, we will find it much easier to befriend the person in the mirror.

Change, as in real change, is never easy.

It does take time and it is hard.

But so is living a life that we have basically opted out of.

Will 2019 be your year to start putting in the ground work for the changes you want?

The Seasons are Shifting …

It’s snowing!

As I look out of my kitchen window, I feel like I’m looking in to a real live snow globe! And I wonder how long it will be before it settles down.

As I do so I reflect upon the shifting of the seasons. It feels very much as if the winds of change are blowing (from the East apparently!). There may be snow on the ground but there are also buds of new life in evidence. Although I’m not sure how they will fare following this snow!

We’re in between seasons, no longer fully in Winter yet undeniably not yet in Spring. Signs of both seasons are present. We’re in transition. And this happens every single year. Maybe at slightly different times and in differing ways but the seasons come and the seasons go. We know and accept this. Even with all the weather associated grumblings that make us English!

Yet how much more as humans can we resist the changing seasons of the soul. We can fall in to the ‘comfort’ of just wanting life to stay the same. At least if things are going well. And even when they’re not, we can still opt for the familiar over the unknown.

Yet nature reminds us that nothing stays the same. Ever. Everything changes. Constantly. Either that or it dies.

We too are invited to be open to change. Not just to find a nice comfortable way to live and stay there forever more. But to be open to the ongoing changing seasons along with all the endings and loss that precipitate growth and new life.

As I observe the shifting of the seasons of nature, I know that I cannot make the winter stay simply to avoid the change that Spring will bring. I equally know that I cannot fast track in to spring to avoid the dead and the cold of winter. I accept this and I trust it.

The external changes I see within nature reflect something of the internal changing of the seasons of my soul. I can’t see them in the same way and I don’t know what the new season will look like. I know only that it will not be the same as the previous or existing one.

My season of the soul is effectively under review.

It is no longer what it was, neither is it yet what it will be.

It is in transition.

I am in transition.

Strange but exciting.

When I look back to the season of last year, I see new life in the areas of work, play and ministry. It was full of colourful and varied expressions of creativity from the kitchen to the garden, to my work and ministry.

I felt full of life and new ventures. It was exciting, enlivening, over full in honesty and at times terrifying. But I loved it. Mostly. I felt very alive.

Then the death of a loved one came and I was stopped in my tracks. I tried to resume life as I’d known it before but I couldn’t. I needed to pull back, slow down, stop, rest, heal and reconsider all.

As I continue to do this, I notice a natural stripping back occurring. As a self-employed individual, the financial controller part of myself has started to ask some uncomfortable questions. Fortunately, these days the spiritual part of me has walked with God for long enough to know that when things suddenly start shifting, I need to pay attention for God is on the move and in control. And way more dependable than any finance.

I have learned and I am continuing to learn way beyond the honeymoon period of knowing, through many periods of doubt and despair, that no matter what is happening in my life or how I feel about it, God remains trustworthy in all matters. Not for life to be how I want or to be exempt from the trials but that He is always there ready to help me to overcome whatever comes at me that I may continue becoming all that I have been made to be. As well as continuing to pursue the paths, the plans and the purposes that He has for me. No matter what. For His plans always supersede anything I could ever come up with.

And so, as I realise that it is God who is stripping me back right now, I am beginning to loosen my grip upon all things known in my life that the winds of change may take away that which I need to let go of to make room for that which I am being prepared for.

This is a live process. It’s moving constantly and hard to capture in words right now. I don’t really know what is happening within me. I don’t really know what the outcome of this seasonal shifting will be. I don’t know what I will have to relinquish from my life nor what I will find in its place. I don’t really know what will happen, when or how. I know only that it is happening. And that I can fight this process out of fear or I can surrender and embrace what is to come out of expectation and anticipation. Ultimately out of trust for the one who does know for I believe that it is He who is engineering this seasonal shifting.

Trust is such a key element of being a human. Trust in ourselves, in our God, in others and in life. Trust that just as nature reminds us that the seasons do what they need to facilitate the next season, so too do we when we trust and surrender.

We can’t stay in any one season forever more. It isn’t possible. Everything that lives continues to move, to change and to grow. Including us. But we each must choose whether to go with this or to fight it.

Imagine attempting to stop summer from ever ending. With no stripping back, no season of rest, everything would eventually die off. New life would cease to continue. Ditto with us humans.

New life wants to spring forth within us all. But this cannot happen without the season of pruning, stripping back and rest that facilitate the emergence of new life. Without which something within us begins to die.

We trust in the seasons of nature, that no matter how long it takes, the snow will eventually go and spring will burst forth bringing a colourful array of new life with it. And maybe even some warm sunshine!

Can we trust too in the seasons of the soul?

Can we allow the changes to come?

Not fight to keep things the same?

Not hold so tightly to the old and familiar that we block the arrival of the new and unknown?

Can we simply surrender through trust to the shifting of the seasons?

When I look back fifteen years, my life today bears no resemblance to what it did back then. And I praise God daily for that. When I look back five years ago, my life was entirely different. When I look back a year ago, some things were the same, many were not. Life doesn’t stop ebbing and flowing, birthing new things, seeing others end.

It’s a living thing this life and all living things must go through seasons in order to stay alive. And this includes us.

When I look around at the moment, I see much change occurring in the lives of my friends. Seasonal shifts. A letting go of the old. For some, relinquishing positions they had held for twenty odd years. A willingness to make space for something new. Even when the new thing is not yet seen. A willingness to trust and surrender to the process of life and living and changing and growing.

The winds of change are clearly blowing.

The seasons are indeed shifting.

I don’t know what this means for me or my life right now but I do know that I want to shift with them. I don’t want to get left behind. I’m not sure what will happen as a result but I trust that in the right time, that which is currently unclear will become clear.

Endings and beginnings …

It’s a whole, brand new year brimming with possibilities for new beginnings …

And yet in order to fully engage with these, it is sometimes necessary to look beyond the well-meaning intentions of new years resolutions that seldom make it in to February. Sometimes we actually need to step right back from our lives in order to really see those things that may actually be obstructing or restricting us from entering in to all that a new year has to offer.

As I reflect back on this time last year, I recall being in a distinctly difficult place. I was painfully aware that important parts of my life were not working. Yet to really allow myself to take a long, hard look at said areas, was not only painful, but also required me to act upon what I saw.

It was hard and I was afraid.

Like most of the human species, I can at times allow myself to remain in painful situations, simply because they feel safe via their familiarity or I’m just not sure what else to do.

Fear of the unknown can keep us bound to that which we know. Even when it prevents us from growth and health.

Back when I looked in to the mouth of 2017, I felt a fear borne of knowing that I could not simply repeat another year like the one before. Yet I also feared not knowing what change would bring. I needed courage and vast amounts of it in order to take the leap of faith that would release me from that which was hindering me, that I could go in search of that which could support me.

I had no guarantee at that point of what I would discover or where I would land. I simply knew that I could not remain where I was. I needed to execute some endings in order to allow for new beginnings. It was a risk. One that others didn’t necessarily understand. But stronger than the fear of others misjudgement of my motives, was the knowing that it is I and I alone who is responsible for doing what I know to be right, even when it scares me.

But before I took that leap, I did a review of those who did see and who did understand my predicament. It was then with their love and support that I was able to leave the familiar, to enter unknown territory.

Now, as I look back through 2017, I am amazed by much that has happened. It took me a full decade to fulfil my dream to become a fully trained, accredited Psychotherapist. Yet after the explorations that followed taking said leap in 2017, I began to walk in to some of those other dreams too.

And I finally found the place of encouragement and support that my soul had dared to believe existed.

Wow.

Feeling grateful to the God who calls and equips us all for the ultimate, personally designed adventure in to the unknown. A God who provides what and who we need to continue pursuing these paths. When and if He can ever get us to relinquish that life stealing ‘better the devil you know’ mentality.

Had I been too afraid to let go of that which was obstructing my pathway, 2017 would have been a mere repetition of 2016. Ditto if I hadn’t had the encouragement of those rare and precious individuals who believed in me when I struggled to believe in myself.

Looking even further back, I recognise that it was the trials of 2016 that prepared me to commit 2017 to addressing that which I had previously refused to see or address, thus allowing it to hold me back.

Now, as I face 2018, having wholly committed myself to the ongoing adventure of allowing God to guide me in to what is unknown to me, but totally known to Him, I feel ready to be released in to … I don’t know what! Yet acknowledging that I am not in control but that God is, feels like the most secure yet exciting position I could ever be in!

As I reflect, I realise that there is much that happens in our lives from year to year that we cannot predict or prevent. Yet we can always choose whether we will add to our own suffering by refusing to face the situations in our lives that are within our control and responsibility.

I needed to make a choice this time last year to see that which was painful to see, that I could disentangle myself from it, thus releasing myself in to the ongoing journey of freedom, growth and health.

Whilst I do not know what kind of years you have had recently, I do know that none of us need stay in the sort of situations that cause us pain, when it is possible for us to release ourselves.

I have been reminded in a personally, painful way this Christmas, that whilst we sometimes settle for suffering by postponing the changes we need to make, life does not go on forever. For some, life will end prematurely in 2018.

Now, none of us get another chance at doing things differently in 2017 or any earlier years. We can’t go back. We can’t undo. We can’t rewrite. But what we can do with whatever time and life each of us has remaining, is make a choice to face up to and throw off all that hinders us, that we may wholly embrace all that lays before us.

I don’t know what you need to be willing to open your eyes to see, or what action you need to take to address it, but I do know that none of us need to despair that we are stuck repeating the same year forever more. Not when there is one who is willing to help, one who doesn’t need to be banished from mind and heart simply because the season of Christmas is ending. For God Himself is just waiting for the word from you, to step in and help you to overcome whatever may be attempting to prevent you from entering in to all that 2018 has for you.

Of course, every year brings its own trials and heartaches, but we can choose not to add to these, by facing and addressing those situations that are within our responsibility to do so.

What do you need to see and address to allow you to really embrace 2018?