Change, change, change

"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change" - Carl Rogers

Curious indeed. Here we are wanting a different life but desperately clinging to the one we have. I can't imaging that there are many people who have not tried to change something only to slide back into old behaviours quickly. Most of us will identify with wanting to exercise more, lose weight, eat better, sleep more, oh - and meditate more.

Carl Rogers helps us to see that change comes from acceptance of who we are now, not from a dream of what we might be. When we chase the dream, we are running from ourselves. Change is accomplished in small steps linked to the belief that, at our core, we are a good, worthy, lovable person or at least there is something in us that is.

When we do not want to accept it, we flit around like the butterfly. The love that allows us to change is the one we find from within. In essence, when we are alone we come to understand ourselves, we come to know what we feel and we come to know what is possible in the moment. It is there, in the moment, that change happens. When we are alone with ourselves, we are also with the most complex relationship we have in our lives. So change comes with what we can handle - just what is in this moment.

We fear change as it is seen by us as determining the pathway up Mount Everest.  Rather, switch the perspective to the words of Lao Tzu in the Tao te Ching "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." We, as humans, tend to complicate change to all or nothing which defeats us.

Our meditation can help us be here with the step me must take now.

There was the slight whiff of change in the wind

The aroma in the air had a new perfume

It was sweet and subtle

The light hinted at change as the hue shifted darker

The humidity grew

It clung to my skin like a drape

The soil below my feet

Crunched with each step

Dust rose up from the dry

The trees drooped and shed 

As the ground below

Could not satisfy the thirst at the roots

The change could be felt

in the distance as a far away light burst

Whose sound was nothing more than a firecracker

My skin began to ooze moisture

The sky hang heavier and darker

But burst with flashes of excitement

The change was here

The ground opened up

The air was alive

Then as though impossible

As though under a shower

The sky ushered in the monsoon

Could the change be held

Would the gift be received

Or would it be shed away

© Peter Choate, 2016

Fragility

Xavier Le Pichon is a French geophysicist who is known for his work on Tetonic plates. But in a recent interview, he also spoke about the true fragility of the human existence. It is a vital reminder that everything about us is fragile. Building on yesterday's meditation on impermanence, is the step towards understanding that impermanence applies to each of us as well. There is nothing about any one of us that has any sense of permanence.

In many ways, that is well understood in our societies but perhaps not in the way we might hope for. There are myriads of programs, products, books, videos which are all designed to change who we are. We can become fitter, more beautiful, more sculpted, better dressed. Thus, we seem to accept that we are impermanent. We even accept that, as we age, things change.

What happens when we think of change though as being about the fragility of our existence? Does it create quite a different understanding? Does it open up that we are on this earth for but a second in time? If so, then what we do at this very moment matters as it is the only thing we can be wholly within.

I saw me in the mirror

 But it was not the same me

I looked away and then looked back

Even in the few seconds there was something different

Each time I did this there was always change

It was me but me was never the same

I walked the path I had done many times before

I knew each tree, each root that stuck out

The lines, the curves, the bumps were so familiar

But each day I would walk the path

I found something new

It was the same path but it was never the same

© Peter Choate 2016