There
are times in life when we feel transformed - we
come back from a workshop or finish reading a book, we have an enlightening
conversation or watch an eye opening documentary or just are in a situation
which opens our soul connection and changes our perspective. We come out
feeling new, more alive, freer than before and we just know that we have changed. A lot of times we tell ourselves and our dear ones
that we can’t recognize the person we were before. And then suddenly we begin
talking in terms of the “old” me and the “new” me.
We go
“back” into life excited and elated about living our changed lives while at the
same time tentative about how we are going to “adjust” and whether this change
is going to last. We believe that we are new people who are going back into the
same old existence and that we need to learn to balance that old life as
a new person. We have new eyes but we continue to look through our old glasses.
We are also fearful at some level about whether these changes are going to lead
to our losing what was once dear to us. As a result we try to merge the new and
the old, thinking that it would help us achieve a seamless transition, instead
of just accepting the changed version of
ourselves. So we build resistance to just flowing the way we are.
Some of us fall ill,
end relationships, break habits and lose friends. Some of us spend money on
changing wardrobes and giving ourselves a make-over. Or we just give up, think
the changes were a temporary fun phase and go back to the way we were. These and
so many other ways we find to “handle” the change, to deal with the
“resistance” to leading our “new” lives. And we repeat this cycle over and over
again – whenever we go through an episode of transformation. We make change so
difficult and then wonder why change management is the new fad!
What
if we were to look at it from a different perspective – what if we realized
that this was just a growth process and celebrated
the growth like we do our birthdays? What if we accepted that all that these
transformations bring about in us is a movement ahead on our path of
enlightenment that cannot be turned back unless we wish to stay attached to the
way we were? What if we realized that these transformations are not change,
they are growth. There isn’t a “new” me and an “old” me any longer
but just the same me who is more enlightened and aware. We are no longer two
different people – we are just one person who has more knowledge and chooses to
live life differently. What if we just had faith in the process and let go of
the resistance believing that this transformation can be as beautiful as we
hope since we are the creators of our existence.
We
would then also realize that every circumstance that we have had in the past,
were just stepping stones to get us where we are. They were each individual
bricks which when put together made the building what it is now. We would also
realize that the difference in our behavior and reactions come from the
combined energy of all of these bricks put together rather than a few of these
new bricks. We would honor ourselves so much more as the sum of these parts
rather than as a different result of some new parts. This would make our space
one of so much more acceptance – no longer
would we be worrying about the parts of the “old” me that we hope will not
surface again. We would be able to retain our experiences but shed our
conditioning that came with these experiences making us perfect for the unique
role each one of us is to perform.