Change takes time. Often, it takes more time than we want it to, especially if the goal is real transformation and not just surface change. We remind ourselves that attaching urgency to change doesn’t make it better (or even necessarily faster), that urgency is a symptom of the culture of oppression in which we exist.
When have you had to teach yourself to let change take more time than you wanted it to?
A guitar needs to be retuned from time to time–sometimes in the middle of a performance. The instrument responds to its environment and the ways it is used, and sometimes it gets out of tune.
When in your life have you had to readjust something that had changed without you noticing?
“A few months ago I took a day-long workshop at East Bay Meditation Center or EBMC, in Oakland, California…. One of EBMC’s core teachings is to embody the Dharma—literally—by reminding us that we are embodied beings. So I was not surprised when this other teacher started leading us in movement meditation. But I was a bit apprehensive about whether my body would be able to move as requested.
“I needn’t have worried. Using language that acknowledged our various degrees of mobility in the room, she guided us to stretch and bend so far as we were able to, emphasizing that whatever we did was enough, asking us to be gentle with ourselves. She encouraged us to focus not on what our bodies couldn’t do but instead on what they could and did do. And that, for me, caused a profound shift.
“I realized that without being consciously aware of it I’d been thinking of my body as a machine that my mind rides around in, and machines break over time. But that way of thinking only looks at change in terms of loss, and the best you can do is to accept it.
“Instead, our teacher reminded us that whoever we are is in large part due to our bodies, however they are. Through the ongoing, inevitable process of change, we are continually becoming something new together.” – Kat Liu
How has your understanding of your body changed over time?
“Change alone is unchanging, said the weeping philosopher. But it’s also really, really hard. Even if we’ve moved on in our minds, our bodies long for the way life was. In the midst of the grief that comes with life transitions we have spiritual resources available to us. Perhaps most importantly we have our own capacity for quieting down, becoming still, being peaceful, paying attention, breathing…. In moments of life transition we need to stop and grieve for the life that is, for better or for worse, slipping away. We need times of quiet and stillness to say, think and feel whatever it is we need to say, think and feel about our old life before we can fully embrace the new. We need times of peacefulness and paying attention in order to break well with old habits.” -Josh Pawelek
What practices help you cope with the grief that accompanies change?
In order to form a chrysalis, the caterpillar needs to fling its entire self off of what is holding it up, letting go with all but one pair of legs of the steady contact it has known its entire life. In order to fly, the bird needs to leap out of the nest that has sheltered it and kept it safe.
What do you need to let go of in order to transform?
