Posts Tagged ‘how to change’

Change

Posted: February 1, 2019 in Change
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One constant in life has been well noted — change. You can count on change; you can build on change; you can take change to the bank.

Everything changes.

Last year my mom died, I moved. My daughter got married. She moved. I initiated a succession plan at work — for my own position. The staff team I have spent years gathering and nurturing  —  they are moving on to new things. A lot has changed.

Change, for me, has worn several faces.

The first face of change — it’s scary. That long, looming, lonely look that Father Change throws my way is lined with fear and with anxiety and with grief.  I grieve. I’m losing something; there it goes. I’ve lost it.  What will life be like now? What will life be like without my mom? Without the house. Without work? Without my team? The water I just jumped into feels a bit cold. Did I jump, or was I thrown — a bit of both.

Life throws us as we jump.

Great.

The second face change wears is the face of curiosity, the less fearful face of “this-is-interesting, maybe-this-will-be-okay, well, fine then!”

During my move into the new zip code, the new change zone, I find that I adjust, I get used to new feelings, new realities, I ask questions, I gather information, I get excited, I make new choices, I form new relationships. I let go, I adapt. I step in.

Lately, I have been mentoring my replacement at work, the new leader, the new nonprofit CEO. I like it. I like empowering new leaders.  I always have always liked that thing where you give someone an opportunity, you bring out the best in them, and you watch them thrive.

I leave a whole string of empowered people in my wake. I like that.

And lately, and lastly, as I approach my own retirement — it’s coming with the spring this year — I find myself more reflective, more calm, quiet, kind to others, kind to myself.. I am content with what has happened, with the then and the now.  I sit in the past; I soak in the present, I grow porous toward the future. I find myself grateful — extremely grateful — for my life.

The third face of change — it has a calm, quiet contented face. Life here doesn’t feel transitional. I’ve arrived somewhere new; it’s good. I have moved from discomfort to acceptance. I am incorporating new realities into my daily life; the surrounding water is warm, the new — it is becoming the  familiar.

Did someone change the ambient temperature of my life?

No, I adjusted.

What to think of all this?

Well, again, change —  it’s certain.

It will happen again, and again and again. Change stutters.

A couple of thoughts.

When I lose — and I will lose more things ahead —  I will sit with my losses, I will feel them, I will know them and I will befriend them.

And as new things enter my life, I will communicate, communicate and then communicate — with my inner circle, with my loves, with my precious ones. I will apply the talking cure — to myself. I will talk out my feelings of discomfort. I will talk out my fears; I will talk about my excitement, and I will talk my way through my lovely changes.

And lastly, I will commit to remaining flexible, plastic, stretchable, open, exploratory, positive, curious —  fascinated!

I will change, within the changes that reside deep within the changing changes, of my constantly changing life.

Flicker! Flame! Fire!

Posted: January 24, 2018 in beginnings
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Flicker, flame, fire — conflagration!

That’s how it goes.

You have the flickering of an idea —  in the car, in the bathroom, in a conversation, in the night.

“Hmm!”

“I could go back to school.”

What if I start a business and market my passion?”

“I’ll start a blog about my struggle with my struggle.”

I’ll lose weight. I’ll have a baby. I’ll retire and start a nonprofit. I’ll reconnect with my dad. I’ll change the organization I work in.  I’ll change my attitude.”

A passion for such illuminations can seize you, overtake you, inspire you! Then out you rush to tell others, to formulate a plan. You boldly ask others to go along with you; you work your bushy, smushy, tushie off  — and boom!

Kaboom!

Kazoom!

Life, is different!

That is how we renew our lives, how we get to the good future, how we have no regrets. We do what falls into our heart to do, and we do it hard.

I wrote my first article for publication after the flicker and flame of an idea about the value of children smoldered in me for a few years. I switched careers in the middle of my life on the flicker of an idea that a pastor wasn’t that different from a professor. “It’s all mind control,” quipped my zippy, quippy wife. I helped renew the church I now pastor on the flicker and flame and fire of the ideas that beauty, humility, integrity and authenticity and God matter — most!

I’ve seen a bunch of this lately. A woman becomes a professional gardener in her fifties. Another begins a new marketing career in her seventies. Another, at eighty, takes on a volunteer pastoral care role at her church.

A disabled woman moves to a new neighborhood that is much safer and yet cheaper than where she lived!

A young woman becomes a youth group leader when she has never done anything like that before.

A girl moves to another city to see if her long-distance relationship with her boyfriend will work out. It does!

They are getting married this spring.

Think it up, get fired up, do it!

Flicker, flame, fire, explode!

Slouching Toward the Future

Posted: November 24, 2016 in journey
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“What if you just yack your way through the rest of your life?” I asked one of my good friends today.

“That would work,” she said. “That’s what I do best.”

I agree. She’s a yacker, and I love listening to her yackety yak. She goes on — and off, delightfully. I can only hope and pray she ardently devotes herself to it.

She told me today, “There are no bad words; there is only bad timing.” I’m good with that. I am always looking for the wrong word at the right time. It makes people laugh.

I took my time at the credit union today to talk to three different staff members, yacking it up about family, the holidays, church. It was a bit of verbal delectation — I tossed in a few bon mots — for me and for them. Like my friend, it’s what I do. More of that, in print, that’s what’s next for me.

What’s next? For any of us?

What’s next is what has been that wants to be more so —  but that which will take intention, choice and courage — and will come at a cost — really.

There must be a shedding of what has been that wants to be less so and a filling of that empty space with what wants to be that hasn’t been yet.

We wait too long.

We wait until the garage is full. We delay until someone has to call the doctor for us — or the therapist. We put off applying for the new job until we are sick to death of the old one. We delay the art project until it is too late to do it. We retire to late. It is easier to drift, to float than to act out something new. We hawk the past to ourselves to avoid buying our tickets to the good future.

We neglect our craft. We slouch toward the future.

I wonder. Is it time for you and me to stop doing what we are doing so we can start doing what we really want and need to be doing. — the good stuff, like more yacking?

What isn’t working?

What might be better?

Don’t slouch toward Bethlehem; don’t amble toward the future.

Run toward it!