You deserve this.

Who else really doesn’t do well with sudden change? Or is it just me.

Throughout my life, I have had a VARIETY of changes. Typically, my response to change is exhaustion. I will just feel really, really tired for the first two weeks. I chalk it up to my body adjusting to the change.

Now, I have children. You can’t quite feel really, really tired when you have children. So, I took this opportunity to learn something new about myself during this most recent season of change.

I have discovered: it’s not that change makes me tired; change makes me feel stressed, overwhelmed, and sometimes grief. When I am stressed and overwhelmed, I naturally feel tired. Remove the ability to rest, and you’re just left with the feelings.

SO, let’s take this opportunity to reflect on how you handle change. How does your body respond? Do you reflect on how your body is communicating with you?

If you have read the other blogs, you have heard me say this before: your body communicates with you, sometimes before you even realize something is wrong. When we ignore our body symptoms, it just gets stronger until we crash.

I am here admitting that I don’t think I listened to my body before. Yes, I replied to it (by allowing the rest), but I didn’t investigate it.

Now that we have revisited that topic. What do you do with yourself when you aren’t able to manage the change?

One word: Patience.

Patience is hard. We live in a society of SPEED. We live in a world where we expect (and want) things to JUST HAPPEN. However, we can’t rush our body. And we can’t ignore it. So, what’s there left to do? Be patient with yourself while you are adjusting. Be nonjudgemental of yourself as you’re experiencing the emotions of being uncomfortable and figuring it out.

Why? You deserve it.

By choosing to not be patient with yourself, you’re just fighting a losing battle. Change is necessary. It’s part of life. It’s inevitable. Some change is more intense than others. Why not allow patience?

In my practice, I like to use a very visual, concrete example of being gentle with change.

If we think about general change, think of butterflies. They start in a very comfortable environment and suddenly they’re out into the world. To them, it must be uncomfortable, scary, big; but it’s also life.

If nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies*

To be pretty matter of fact, would you give butterflies permission to figure it out? Would you be judgmental with them? Then why not with yourself as well?

You are also figuring it out.

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Having a hard time giving yourself that permission to change? Permission for patience? Reach out. Let’s investigate that together.

*not an original quote