Newness is possible for you
For when you're in the unknown, building something new, starting again, changing course: have some faith in yourself. Even though things feel unknown, you are known; all this newness takes is putting one foot in front of the other again and again and again.
And you know how to do that.
The confusing thing about doing something new or different or whatever it may be, whether you're starting a new job, a new relationship, or perhaps even something like a new practice or mindset or belief, is the lingering nature of all that you've been and done and known before.
Change is challenging, which is why so many never seem to change, but rather only double down on the way things have always been, white-knuckling onto stale and damaging dogma, etching deeper grooves into old pathways and patterns.
Change requires a certain type of energy that knows how to flow and bend and move and morph in such a way that honours what was and leaves it behind, too. Change is not an indictment on the old. Change is the natural progression of being alive in the world. Change is how you honour life in all its seasons and movement and colour.
Lao Tzu said:
"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need."
You can let go and be grateful at the same time. You can become something new and send your old self love at the same time. You can say goodbye without rejecting and shaming and creating a division to propel you into what's next.
This is why sometimes the beginning of new things can feel like a grief, or a death… they can feel like anything other than something new and exciting. Your challenge is to trust, have faith, give yourself to the chaos and mess knowing that the only way beyond is through.
Barbara Brown Taylor said:
"As many years as I have been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air. Sitting deep in the heart of Organ Cave, I let this sink in: new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark."
All life starts in the dark. For too long have we demonised everything other than productivity, and not just productivity, but the kind of productivity deemed the most advanced by colonial and capitalistic institutions, mindsets, and groups. It's leaked into our faith communities, education systems, governments, and societies. It has us chasing the unattainable, deepening the divides between us, competing in a race that doesn't even exist.
No wonder we seem so tired and despondent and hopeless. No wonder we distract and numb and ignore. We need a revolution of wonder and fun; we need to reclaim the practice of letting go and embracing the chaos; we need to show up to here and now, to our pain and joy, if we are to heal all the ways we are fractured and divided.
Newness is possible for you, for us, for all of us together. We just have to be brave enough to let go of all that holds us back and put one foot in front of the other and keep on living our way into it.
Mindful Prompt: When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need. (Lao Tzu.)
From my upcoming series, "For Your Healing" this week with a subscription in the App.
Written by Liz Milani.
Instagram: @thepracticeco
