Back in 2016, after my dog of 13 passed away from malignancy complications, I made a trip to Ladakh. It had been planned before Amber passed on, but something about the way I experienced the trip completely changed after. What had seemed like a way for me to leave aside the mundane heaviness of daily life, became an evolving zone to feel loss and freedom as interwoven.
While being there, I made new friends and one who grew especially close to me once remarked during a conversation, while we rode towards the Hemis Monastery. He said, "What's life without change? Is it not change that makes life exciting?" I remember nodding to that question and telling him why it resonated so strongly with me.
Yet, I kept thinking about it. Is all change pleasurable, is all change stimulating in a way we appreciate? The context in which we are thinking about change can of course limit our expanse of thinking, like it did for me in the wintry light of an August sun, the sky, blue like a painting.
Gradually, it dawned on me that change can be as multi-dimensional as anything else. Something pleasant by way of change can move us to happy tears, a sense of relief and subsequent calm. The opposite can also be said to be true : change can devastate us beyond words and to act then can become cumbersome.
Let's put it this way : travel is change, but so is losing a job. Getting a promotion is change, but so is getting to know a peer is being considered for a role we thought we are more suited to.
So why is change capable of bringing about such different experiences for us? Does it only have to do with the context we are in and the expected outcome around it? Or is it something more?
(Image Courtesy : Sanjeevan SatheesKumar, Unsplash)
The more I sat with it, the more I realised the following :
CHANGE DOES NOT JUST HAPPEN TO US.
CHANGE ALSO HAS US INTERACTING WITH IT.
This led me to understanding what decides how we interact with change.
OUR ROLE in alignment with the context.
If the context in which change is set is important, so is the role we have to play in relation to the change.
Are we driving the change or is the change driving us?
If we are the drivers of change in a context, even if it gets uncomfortable, we feel we are at the helm of decision-making. Compare this to a context where change is thrust upon us and we find ourselves at the receiving end.
Can we act from a place of power in the face of change or are we left feeling intensely helpless?
Are we free to make decisions aligned to who we are in the face of change or does the process of change (whether brought about by us or the context we are in) leave us with a sense of stifled victimhood?
Are we in agreement with the change or are we left feeling intensely choice-less?
Whether a process of change happens to us or we actively bring it about, agreement or the lack of it has a lot to do with how we think, feel and behave. The greater the agreement, the lesser the resistance, and hence, increased willingness to flow with the change.
Any change, even the ones that do not make us resentful, requires adjustment. Even if we are finally jumping aboard that flight to visit a country that has forever been on our checklist, we will still have to adjust. If we are able to gain greater clarity on our role in context to the change, assess the nature of our feelings and sensations and understand the extent of our power in the scenario, finding the key to riding change might just become easier.
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