to change or stay the same?

It’s a New Moon, which is a perfect time to plant them seeds for the future! This New Moon is also in Taurus which “teaches us to fully and deeply appreciate what we have (right in front of us), not just what we want to get next.”*

What I’m tryna say is let’s talk about change.

I moved to the desert for change (duh?).

It may seem drastic to move from Brooklyn to a small town in the California desert…and it was. Er, it is.

The desert is a wild place. For every moment of beauty there’s constant tornado-like wind, extreme poverty and meth-heads for days, bad coffee, debilitating drought (up until like 10 minutes ago), and a dryness that seeps into your feet — creating mini, painful, Grand Canyons where your heels used to be.

But I did it because I asked myself a really tough question.

Am I more afraid of changing or staying the same?

It’s easier for things to stay the same. It’s what’s familiar. SO even though we’re desiring change, there’s a part of us that wants to stay stuck…wants to stay in the comfort of familiarity.

However uncomfortable, we, the living, can and will find comfort in the discomfort. It’s a survival technique.

I had to play the tape forward and imagine myself several years into the future. How did it feel to potentially imagine myself in the same place, doing the same things?

Honestly, I could see it. I could justify why it would be ok. How the little changes I’d make would be enough. And it just felt wrong.

Just like when Ryan proposed to me. I had AAAALL THE REASONS to say no. He knew I didn’t want to get hitched because patriarchy, because marriages fall apart, because ugh heteronormativity and its culture-killing rewards.

But, in the very moment I gave myself permission to not change, I saw something TOTALLY UNEXPECTED.

• stay the same…Which felt safe, though sort of awful because I was using all these external reasons to cobble together my own story.

OR

• change…I could leap into the mf mystery. “WHICH WAS WHATTT??!!” I was desperate to know.

And in that moment I got that you can’t evereverever know the mystery before you leap.**

You can only prepare emotionally/spiritually/mentally/physically for the leap and take those understandings with you on the journey.

The leap for me in that moment, on a bed swinging from ropes in a palm-fronded hut overlooking the canopy of the jungle, was to choose love. We’d worked damn hard for our relationship, and I knew — at the very least — true love would be present in the mystery.

I leapt (not out the window to escape his proposal — which I def considered…but into the mystery)!

Turned out, I was more afraid of staying the same (and who I would become if I did) than I was of changing.

And when I decided to leave NYC/move to the desert, I faced the same choice. This time I had a little more confidence that I’d be held in the mystery (see how that works?).

Look, choosing change isn’t the easiest. You may not even realize that you’re struggling with change. That’s a real mind eff, I know.

If you’re wanting change but it ain’t coming, you might have some resistance to it. If you’re self-sabotaging, unclear, suffering from indecision, procrastinating or waiting until the perfect moment/condition/what-have-you…it’s worth looking at.

{To help you move with grace and ease into the change you’re calling in, here’s a guided exercise and visualization to help you see where and how you may be resisting change + how to shift that energy.}

It includes some guided writing, color therapy, EFT tapping and energy medicine.

 

>> Join me for MAGIC HOUR live coaching every Friday at 11am PST via facebook live <<

 

* From Pat Liles ThePowerPath.com on this New Moon in Taurus (omg is this a true footnote??)

** Sorry, not sorry.

 

Art by Alexandra Valenti