“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.” ~Karen Kaiser Clark
Life can be a persistent teacher.
When we fail to learn life’s lessons the first time around, life has a way of repeating them to foster understanding.
Over the last few years, my life was shaken up by dramatic circumstances. I resisted the impermanence of these events in my life and struggled with embracing change. When I resisted the lessons that change brought, a roller coaster of changes continued to materialize.
When I was twenty-four years old, I had plans of working in the US of A where my course, Sports Therapy is in demand. Yet it turned to be a misfortune that I was deported at my arrival in Detroit Airport due to harassment of these black officers.
The deportation was sudden and unexpected, catching my family and friends by surprise. I felt devastated that my hopes of becoming a Sports Therapist and probably taking up further studies didn’t turned up to be the way I planned it.
Fortunately, I got back to my old track in TV Sportscasting and got blessed with a lot of job offers. This time I prayed for something else, a career where I can experience the World and luckily after 6 months of waiting came an International Cruise Ship offer for being an Activity Supervisor.
Life was moving much faster than I was able to handle, and that was the same time I had my first relationship with someone I didn’t expect would come along. I was torn of leaving him because I knew I prayed for him, yet I knew this was an opportunity of a lifetime I couldn’t spoil away. He didn’t want me to leave but I did it because I had to grab that opportunity to grow and fulfill myself.
I felt overwhelmed by my new environment in the cruise ship, new faces, different cultures, new friends and a world all on my own --- kind of easy knowing how Ms. Independent I can be. Although, the distance grew us apart and I had to end the relationship because my focus that time was for my personal growth.
Unexpectedly, after my contract that same guy who I pushed away pursued me. I didn’t had the face to see him because I tore him apart yet his persistence and determination of wooing me made me decide to give it another chance. Little did we know that it will still throw us again several tests in the relationship that made us both decide to separate ways.
It was a difficult decision, because I thought I’d found my best friend for life in Him...yet perhaps He didn’t see me in that future. My life became engulfed with changes once again as I tried to close the doors to this relationship, start a new business and go on with my usual life, the old Ms Independent me that people loved.
I met the closure of our relationship first with strong resistance and then with profound sadness and loss. How could something that I valued so much, went home for and believed to be forever, cease to exist?
As much as I fought back and resisted each of these events in my life, I’ve since learned to embrace the impermanency of my life and the changes that come my way.
Here are 6 lessons life has taught me on embracing change:
1. Reduce expectations.
In each of my life’s circumstances, I had high expectations for my career, business and my relationship. I had expected each to remain constant and to last forever. But I’ve learned that nothing lasts forever. Nothing.
You can have reasonable expectations of how you’d like something to turn out, but you can’t marry yourself to that result. Reducing or having no expectations about a relationship, a business, or a situation can help you accept whatever may come from it.
When you set reasonable expectations, and don’t expect or demand a particular outcome, you’re better able to manage any changes that do come your way. Unreasonable expectations of life, however, will likely be met with loss, disappointment, and pain.
2. Acknowledge change.
For the longest time, I refused to believe that change was in the realm of possibility in a situation. I’ve since learned that change can happen quickly and at any point.
Be aware that change can happen in your life. This means understanding that things can and will be different from how they are now. Acknowledging change is allowing it to happen when it unfolds instead of approaching change from a place of denial and resistance.
3. Accept change.
I desperately tried to prevent and stop change from happening in my business and relationship by trying to forge ahead even in futile situations.
Instead of resisting, allow change to unfold and try to understand what’s transforming and why.
Circumstances will not turn out the way you want them to, and it’s perfectly all right. Embracing the situation can help you deal with the change effectively, make the necessary shifts in your life to embrace the change, and help you move forward after the event.
4. Learn from the experience.
If you accept and embrace change, you will start looking for and finding lessons in it.
When dramatic changes were happening in my life, I refused to acknowledge them at first, so change left me distraught and without meaning. Once I reflected back and finally accepted the changes, the lessons I started absorbing were profound.
Change becomes your greatest teacher, but only if you give yourself permission to learn from it.
5. Recognize you’re growing stronger.
When you accept, embrace, and learn from change, you inevitably grow stronger. The ability to continuously accept change allows you to become as solid as a rock in the midst of violent storms all around you—even if you feel afraid.
6. Embrace the wisdom.
The more I permitted change and impermanence in my life, the more I grew as a person. Embracing change has brought newfound strength into my life and surprisingly, more inner peace.
When you proactively embrace change and learn to accept it as a part of life, you are filled with more calmness, peace, and courage. When life fails to shake you up with its twists and turns, you realize that changes can’t break you.
You’ve reached a level of understanding in life that some might even call wisdom.
While by no means have I reached that place called wisdom, I’m working through my aversions to change. I now openly welcome and embrace it.
When we can accept change, learn from it, and become all the better for experiencing it, change is no longer our enemy. It becomes our teacher.
Today Ive learned to embrace the wisdom that these changes have brought in my life. To never settle for anything we don’t deserve (if it doesn't want to compromise, don't force it) and to walk by faith in God to surprise us everyday!
So if you want to be truly happy, then don’t be hesitant to embrace change! For the single ones out there, embrace this season and start packing your suitcase again with those non-negotiables you WANT and NEED in your next relationship. God is telling you to pack your suitcase and things you’d like to share with your future partner and be open to Gods suprises because one of these days He will definitely take you on a Grand Adventure at the right time with the right person. I hope you enjoy your next cruise or flight!
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