Accepting change

Date: 15-09-2021

This has been a really hard year for everyone. The pandemic has thrown our inadequacies and meaninglessness of life into perspective. So much has changed and yet so much has not. I want to lament that my life was turned upside down but “How do you know that your life would not be better turned upside down?” as was said by Shams-i-Tabrizi.

I have had a complex relationship with change since I was a kid. While the most important thing for me was to learn new things and enhance my state of mind, I was always the controller of change. I got to decide what I learn, what I believe in, what my values are and what I change inside me. From a young age, I worked on myself, diligently tried to understand and question things around me, and pondered continuously to make my own system of beliefs rather than accepting what I was being socialized into. I sincerely believed in change but I also had to be the one in its control. With time, however, many life experiences and inadvertent events changed me or at least had overwhelming power over me. In their wake, for a very long time, and to this day, I struggle with the unwanted and unwelcomed change. I long for the “normal”. I know there are new unknown territories that scream fear and disconnection. I want to reconnect with myself.

Shams-i-Tabrizi came to mind recently…why do I need to stay in denial. whatever the changes, wanted or unwanted, it is all still part of myself and all I need to do is get to know the new parts better. The ones I like, the ones I don’t like and the ones I am afraid of.