Dear visionary,
| This message comes to you from the bush trail behind my house, where the constellation of crunchy dirt, tall trees and larrikin birds allows me to think. I come up here because it is free from the noise of life and allows me to collect and assemble the thoughts I know you (and I) need to here. Up here in the escarpment everything is flux – the light, the wind, the terrain – and you, dear friend, are know different. You age, go through seasons, leave jobs, start relationships and navigate many different emotional states. Change is your natural state of being. Despite the human propensity to change, it can be a challenging, slippery process. Good intentions propel you forward, but the craving for stability pulls you back. To move the process forward you exert effort and control, muster up will power and rely on external forces. No wonder, this is what you were taught in school, work places, productivity gurus and often parents, but this process of change often exhausts you before it changes you. |
| This message is for the part of you who craves growth more than it craves certainty. The part of you who is conscious and brave. I look around the bush for clues on how to change with ease and flow, because unlike humans nature does this so well. The trees are dry, but green. The Illawarra escarpment has been lucky this bushfire season, although my 80 year old neighbour tells me the escarpment was burnt by fires in the 1960s. It is clear the process of change is, by nature, one of destruction. Creation and expansion require contraction and destruction. You must be willing to let go of what has shaped in you, in order to re-shape you. I know you know this. |
| But tell me honestly, how true are you being to this universal truth when it comes to your own growth and evolution? Have you made space for the destruction of old thoughts, patterns and beliefs? Have you surrendered to the process of releasing old and outdated ways of being, moment by moment, day by day? Or are you trying to build a new version of you through the same thoughts, emotions and habits as a past version of self? |
| When you are stuck – smack bang in the middle of who you are – it can feel impossible to imagine becoming anything or anyone else. It requires you to live beyond the thoughts, emotions and habits you have always known. A task most adults find difficult, at best. But remember how easy this was when you were a young child before the onslaught of social norms, expectations and responsibilities clouded your authentic self? It is from that child-like place of imagination, curiosity and play where true evolution becomes possible. Change is a process of remembering what life was like before change was so hard and complicated. The time of life where your development was natural, organic and delightful. |
| Your childhood self wouldn’t have written a pros and cons list about the benefit of changing. He wouldn’t have surveyed every child about the street about the ‘right’ way to go from being 3 to 4 years old. She wouldn’t have blocked her path forward with self doubt and second guessing. He would have experimented, fallen over, laughed, cried and continued on. She would have taken a step, looked around for support, take another step and so on until she got to where she wanted to go, or somewhere even better. He would have giggled and delighted at his own strength, becoming his own cheerleader. This is what I am inviting you to do. To experiment with change, be playful with new actions, to go naturally where your interests take you and to call on support while also being your own cheerleader. To your extraordinary life, Em x |
