You are free to shift and change and discover without fear

Sometimes change comes to us through choice and agency - something we've worked towards and willed and worked into being.

Other times, change comes uninvited; it comes with good news or bad news, and it comes with a momentum that changes the shape of our lives. 

Through a series of generational and evolutionary events, our bodies have learned to see change as a threat. That's often why you feel a hint of adrenalin, a nudge of cortisol; why you might get the shakes or find it hard to sleep (or perhaps the opposite), when change looms large and near, or comes almost as if out of nowhere. It can seem as though time stands still; things seem as though they're moving in slow motion, because your body is trying to keep this change from changing your sense of control and certainty too much. It resists it. It thinks it's doing the right thing. And it wants you to resist it, too. 

The question isn't can you stop change, can you change change itself, could have you don't something different, set another chain of events in motion… no, thoughts of 'what if,' and 'should have' do not serve you when things are shifting. 

The question is, how will you move with it? 

The writer of Malachi said that God said:

"I do not change."*

And the writer of Hebrews echoed that when they wrote:

"For Jesus doesn't change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he's always totally himself."*

Which even further enforces our physiological response of resistance to change. We've been taught to see changelessness as a virtue, a display of faith, a place of safety, and a stance of loyalty. But this is where suffering blooms: when life takes us by the hand, and we dig our heels in and pretend to stand still. 

It's not that God doesn't change. That's not what our ancient mothers and father and others were trying to convey. Our experiences of The Divine; our language for it, the way we express who and what we think God may be and what God may be trying to communicate to us; the way each of us connect to source, the way our ancestors did, the way our children's children's children's children will - all of these morph and bend and move and evolve, over time as our understanding and awareness deepen, as our technologies advance, as we gather more information about the earth and humanity and the universe…

In all the change that naturally happens, our access to divinity is constant. It moves with us; it ebbs and flows and grows and blooms as we do. God is always available to be experienced and engaged. That has never changed and never will. God is always. God is present. God is here. Our work is to align ourselves with God's ever-ness.

Dogma and Doctrine, words and stories, prayers and creeds - these things change. They do. They must. They're seasonal and depend upon the lens and situation of those who create and tell them.

God is what remains. Energy, life source, the ground of being, that oneness that connects us all - earth, humans, fire, water, animals, and the sun and moon and stars...

Ever. Always.

You are free to shift and change and discover without fear of losing that connection, without the anxiety of missing out on the ever-ness of Divine life force.

Whether you've chosen it or not, change of all kinds is an invitation to life. It may not seem that way because of how your body is trying to protect you from all the things you think might happen, but you won't be able to re-write this default system through any other means than to accept the invitation and walk into the unknown. 

Because really, we don't fear change; we fear what we do not know, what we cannot predict, and what we cannot control. Every leap of faith begins with the radical acceptance of where you are. After all, you can't really resist change - life happens without your permission. All you can do is be where you are, and then leap with it, and trust that you'll find the ground beneath your feet on the other side.

Spoiler: you will. 

Consider this: "All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is Change." Octavia Butler

From this week’s series by Katerina Baratta "Finding Self Alignment" this week, with a subscription, in the App.