Moving on is hard, but we can make it easier…
You can tell that it's spring.
The wattle started blooming a few weeks ago; the middle of the day is crispy hot, while the evenings are windy and cool. Today, a diamond python slithered its way across the road I was walking, seeking the warmth of the sun after a winter of sleep. The whales that pass here twice a year on their seasonal migration have begun their pilgrimage. The windows are open. The days are getting longer…
It's not just that the date on the calendar has ticked over, telling me that we've transitioned from winter into spring; you can feel it, too, in the air, in the sun, in the way the earth smells…
The elemental nature of the seasons draws me right into their journey. As the seasons change, they invite us into our natural rhythms, the organic changes taking place in our hearts and lives. They lead the way; they show us how, they display how natural it is to be a seed dead in the ground, to crack open buried in the dirt, away from the limelight, to stretch towards the surface, to rise in obscurity, unnoticed until it buds and blooms and colours the world and any who care to notice, only to lose its petals one by one, flying away on the wind, and then to finally drop its seed on the ground, trodden underfoot as if it's over…
But we know it's not.
We have such difficulty with moving on, don't we? With change and trasnition. It's not time yet, we say, as we look at our plans and dreams and dates on the calendar - it shouldn't be this cold yet; why is it heating up so early? Why are the leaves falling so soon… that wasn't meant to happen till next week!
Nature has its own pace. It doesn't stick to the script. It follows a rhythm, but it doesn't box itself into numbers on a page. It rises and falls, ebbs and flows, heats and cools, moves freely between its seasons, no holding back, no holding on, embracing each change as if it had chosen it, because, indeed, it has.
How would it feel to be that free? To be able to move with the changes of your life like the earth does with the seasons?
What would it be like to move on from the past, the things that hold you back, or even the things you can't bear to let go of?
Oh, the things we hold onto. The narratives and beliefs, the practices and rituals, the pain and the heartache, the joy and the wonder… Our hearts can so easily become a hoarder's haven for experiences, beliefs, and behaviours. We hold onto them desperately for so many reasons without contemplating the idea that experiences are to be lived, not stored.
I've just turned 41, and life is changing. So many things are changing. I have teenagers. Wrinkles. Fluctuating hormones. There's a temptation to want to hold onto my youth, to keep my children young, to resist change because I don't want to be a failure, I'm tired, and I haven't had enough coffee to do the things scheduled, let alone face the changes that are waiting for me to find time for them.
So, you see, I write this as a friend, not a guru. A fellow traveller, not an authority figure. Although I have learned this: change is natural, as much as we fight it, as much as it feels alien, as much as the idea of moving on prickles the skin and slices the heart….
Change is the most natural and organic experience we go through, and we go through it constantly, consistently, always.
Most of the pain we feel around change is our resistance to it and the stories we tell ourselves about it. In this series, we'll explore a daily affirmation to re-ground ourselves in the beauty and naturalness of change so that we can flow and move with the seasons of our lives, rather than feel like we're being dragged (I know that's how I feel some of the time).
This we can trust: Everything changes. Even the change you're going through now, whether it's difficult or joyful, whether it's confusing or clarifying, whatever it is bringing you or taking away from you: this too will change.
AFFIRMATION: I trust in the natural flow of life; as the seasons change, so do I, growing and evolving with each new phase.
I’d love to see you in the App, xo
Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco
From this week’s series titled "Moving On," with a subscription in the App. Hope to see you there.
