Change Is For The Birds

Change, I assume it’s a nemesis to many. Change can be ugly. Routines get messy and muddled, the familiar becomes foreign and our safe place is somehow compromised.

Typically when change comes to visit, it feels like it’s ready to wreak havoc on everything sacred. For those of us that don’t thrive on change (<-weirdos) it gives us anxiety and worry. It forces us into territories that we never thought we wanted to exist in. It blurs the boundary of the, oh so coveted comfort zone.

When my mother was 20/21 years old she was slapped in the face with a heavy amount of life changes. She got married, moved out of her parent’s house (the only home she’d ever known) and had a baby. Albeit happy changes, they were also big and life altering.  It seems that even the best kind of changes can be devastating, not only to our mind but to our bodies. Change can cause stress and stress alters our immune defenses leaving us vulnerable, for her that meant cancer for me that often means exhaustion, tear filled outbursts and feeling completely overwhelmed.  

Change is for the birds I say. But change is inevitable.

Not all people see change in this way. Take my daughter Rory for instance. At the end of last school year Rory was afraid of not being in preschool anymore and what it meant to be a big girl now. To her it meant doing math and just as her older brother had mentioned day in and day out, math was to be feared. With no school or homework in sight over the summer, Rory’s nerves began to calm and something changed.  Rory is five years old and just entered kindergarten (uncharted territory) at a new school with new teachers with no friends.  Do you think Rory was anxiety ridden and feeling overwhelmed by all of the new? No way Jose! She was ecstatic, so much so that we had to count down the sleeps until she could finally meet all of her potential friends at her new school in her new classroom lead by a new teacher. Rory’s perspective changed. Instead of letting it hold her back she let it push her forward into something new and exciting.

Or how about my father who is 58 years old and just uprooted his life in California to come to Arizona in search of a better second half. For year’s family and friends tried with all our might to convince him to quit jobs, dump girlfriends and make the leap promising something better. Better circumstances, better jobs and a better pool of people to choose from when selecting friends and love interests.  After about 15 years of saying no, the reasons he once had for not jumping weren’t scary enough anymore. Possibility was far more desirable than the comfort of what he’d always known. What was once comfortable had become the very thing making his skin crawl. He no longer feared change he welcomed it. At 58 years old he said no to more of the same and made a huge choice to step into something different.

So what is so different about us and them? How is the way you and I have been living different from how Rory and my father are living? Well, for starters they have shifted their perspective from fear to possibility. Instead of letting fear rule their life and hold them back clouding all they could imagine, they gave into change and saw the fog lift from their view. They decided they wanted a clear picture of possibility.