For full list of articles click here Change is in the Air!By Christian de la Huerta |
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Change is in the air. I cannot tell you how many people I have encountered recently all over this country who are experiencing major changes in their lives: starting or ending relationships; going back to school; experiencing major relocations; rethinking drastically their careers, jobs or vocations.
On a national level change has become one of the prevalent themes of the presidential campaign. And heaven knows America--and our world--need change and need to change!
Change, as they say--along with taxes and death--is one of the inevitabilities of life. Yet we resist it. We hold on to the past, to situations that we have outgrown and that no longer work or serve us. Even if they never did, too often we settle for the safety of the familiar. The mental structure of the ego is said to be that part of us whose function is to maintain the status quo, no matter what that is. The ego does not evaluate whether the status quo is comfortable or miserable: its job is to keep things exactly the way they are.
And yet a deeper part of us--call it the soul or the higher self--yearns for change. It finds the comfort and predictability of the status quo stifling; it does not like to play it safe and thrives on diving off cliffs into the hands of the unknown. The soul is an adventurer longing to evolve.
In Richard Bach's "Illusions," a modern-day fable is told about a tribe of creatures which live at the bottom of a river. There they hang on for dear life as they are buffeted and battered by the river's currents. One day, one of the river creatures decides it has had enough of this pseudo-existence: "There has to be another way to live!," it says to its friends, deciding that the risk that things will remain unchanged exceeded the risk of letting go. And so it does, much to dismay of his loved ones, who fear for its very survival. Sure enough, at first the creature is hurled against boulders and gets pummeled by passing debris. Eventually, however, as the fear and struggling subside and the creature begins to relax and simply allow the current to carry it, it floats higher, where the path is clearer and where it has a much more expansive perspective. It learns how to gracefully navigate the current, and soon is relishing the exhilarating experience of soaring freely and unencumbered!
At some point downstream the creature soars above another village of river creatures, all of them still struggling, straining, barely surviving. When the soaring creature is spotted and recognized as one of their own, everyone clamors: "Look! A messiah has come to save us!"
It is time to let go. Trusting that we will be taken care of when we make the difficult choices that are in our highest good. Knowing that though things might feel scary initially and that we may get a little banged up along the way, eventually we will find our way and learn how to soar gracefully.
It is time to stop waiting for the messiah and to BE the messiah.
It is time to trust, and embrace change. It's coming anyway.
