My Peace Is in Riding the Waves of Change

The past few months has brought with it the awareness of how at peace I am with some waves of change in my life. Let me share a few examples.

First, I recently lost some of my income. This income was from teaching ESL to Chinese children (online). Recent legislative changes in China has resulted in the banning of all foreign teachers from teaching ESL to children in mainland China. The adjustment was, initially, a bit of a jolt. There was some worry about the loss of income, but I trusted something else would emerge to allow me to recoup that income. The change of pace has been a welcomed change and other opportunities have emerged that will allow me to replace the income I lost from teaching.

Next, is a rather casual change, but no less significant for me. I have gone through periods in my life where I have done a lot of reading. By a lot, I mean reading as much as a book every day. Over the past 5-6 years, however, I have done very little casual/recreational reading. I was doing a lot of reading for my various work activities and didn’t have the desire for additional recreational reading. Instead of reading, I have been doing jigsaw puzzles. I cannot tell you how many jigsaw puzzles I have completed over the past few years, but it’s a lot! Since December, there has been, what feels like, a natural shift back to more casual / recreational reading. And I’m loving it! I still always have a jigsaw puzzle in the works, but the majority of any spare time I have finds me snuggled up with a good book.

Lastly, enter winter! I enjoyed and embraced winter as a child, teenager, and adolescent. But as I grew into adulthood, my love of winter diminished. Having to commute during winter weather became a stress, and my body grew leery of the cold temperatures. During my 40s I grew to actually hate winter. I tolerated it, at best, and despised it, at worse. But the last few winters I have noticed a wave of change in me. I don’t mind the winters now. I have grown to accept winter for what it is. A period of several months where it is cold outside and there is likely a lot of snow on the ground. This winter, in particular, I am content with winter. And, so far, we have had a very cold and snowy winter; that I anticipate with continue.

In each of the example above, I was presented the situations that invited / allowed me to change and flow with that change. While the period of time resisting the wave of change varied among the above examples, I was always able to welcome peace back into my life as soon as I rode the wave of change instead of resisting it. While this lesson (i.e., go with the flow) is obvious in theory, it is not so obvious in practice. I can think of a couple of areas of my life where I will do well to practice ‘going with the flow.’ Yet there are places and times in the life where I can ride the wave of change and receive the gift of that peaceful transition. My trust is that by practicing riding the wave of change in some areas of my life, I will grow to be able to apply it in all areas of my life.

Robert Meagher has been ordained as an Interfaith Minister and certified as a Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) Therapist. Robert is the Founder and Spiritual Director for Spiritual Guidance and Co-Founder of the Center for Human Awakening.