Welcome to my blog series on change.  Each of these blogs stands alone and also builds on the previous content.  The first in the series was “Why Change” and a free podcast introduced the four powers to navigate change.  The second in the series was “The Story of Change” and helped you identify your relationship with change and the third was “The Journey of Change” invited you to explore ways to embrace the constant of change. .  Find all blogs and free podcasts on each topic at www.allembracingchange.com.   I interrupt the series with this edition.

Six months into 2017 and I feel like I have been the soak and spin cycle of a washing machine.  I have been asked, forced and relegated to loss and letting go. Not necessarily big losses if I was to list them, but for me emotional, symbolic and challenging.  All this loss and change simultaneously occurring with new birth.  New relationships, perspectives, acceptance, stories and projects.  Loss always makes room for new.  The loss and the new are both changes.   Some changes I initiated and have been working on for years, others were a surprise.  I have lost bosses, roles, status, vehicles, relationships, power, control, health, resiliency, predictability and security.  At the same time, I gained strength, vision, intuition, insight, focus, creativity, security, courage, acceptance, confidence, clarity and persuasion.

As I write this, I am in the middle of accepting a big loss, the transition of my 17-year-old dog, Spirit.  Dancing with the loss of her physical presence, rituals and habits and the predictability of her being by my side.  Accepting her spiritual presence as a replacement for that physical presence, wanting it to be as tangible.   I am in the middle of remembering all her rich gifts while she was alive, not wanting to forget any one of them, including how she was teaching all the way through her transition.   I am in the middle of accepting that my mom is moving to assisted living (in good health on her terms).  It is time for her to make this move and for me means letting go of the “home” she held for the family for 50 years.  I am in the middle of letting go of my role and identity I created over 30 years helping others save their rivers.  In addition, I am birthing my oracle, inspirational and healing modalities for others as my future path.  I am so excited where I headed and cannot wait to spend more time there – and I am not there yet.  The push and pull, the tension, the expansion and contraction, the messiness, the unpredictability and the uncomfortable.  The heavy heart mixed with the light heart.  The stories I need to let go of and those that I want and need to share.  My change story challenged every day this year.

Change brings up the dance with our Big Me and Little Me.  The Little Me is that part of us that is ego driven, gets plugged into drama and trauma and procrastination,  The part that hangs on and can dilute our life energy and keep us from our passions, purpose and heart connections.  Big Me, doesn’t avoid drama and trauma, accepts it is part of being human, but doesn’t plug into it.  Big Me for example, looks forward to the judgement of their nemesis, or whomever is “not doing what I need”, because Big Me can see it for what it is.  Big Me can see what is our stuff to own and what is others to give back or release.  Big shows up, knows what she knows, knows when to speak up and when to be silent. Big Me trusts what they know, and speaks her truth with love and lets others be in their strength or in their drama without plugging in.  From that Big Me space you can integrate the large perspective into the needs of Little Me.

Big Me asks things like “will it matter in three years?”, “does this feel light or heavy – what will make it feel light?” , “what question can I ask that feels light versus heavy?”, “what am I making so valid and important about _______”, “what am I not seeing that if I saw would change everything”.   Big Me lives in the question and possibility.  Little Me lives in right wrong, good bad, win loose, my way or highway energy.  Big Me is in the long game of life not the limitations of the moment. Big Me understands that change is always happening and it is through change “this too shall pass”, how can I choose to have it pass empowered and move closer to my purpose and desires?

Navigating change is  “both / and” integration of Big Me and Little Me perspectives – but leading, deciding, taking action from Big Me energy.  Spirit told me before she passed that we were both going through transition just different ones and we would still be together communicating differently.  She told me she had been my therapy dog and believed she was successful and thus my life had to be successful too.  She told me I was “emotion smart”, could read a room of people and it often overwhelmed me but that was a gift – not debilitating. She told me she is ready and I am ready.  She did not take anything personally in her life.  Events just were, any hardship she faced she said that was then, and this is now she moved on.  She was matter of fact about all of these things while steadfast in her love, devotion and loyalty.  She has instilled in me lessons about not only living with change but looking forward to change by embracing all the emotions, uncertainty, anxiety, grief, fear, excitement, curiosity and a matter of fact view (it is going to happen anyhow).  That give allows me to choose to redirect my attention to the possibilities of what is next.  Where will you chose to focus your attention?

Next in this series we will explore “Connection” and change, the first of all tools to navigate change.