Creating A Space For Change To Occur by Nina Bingham

Buddhist nun Pema Chodrin said in her book, When Things Fall Apart, "Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad, we call something good. But really we just don't know." She's giving us permission to be uncertain, because much of life is uncertain. My favorite definition of love is: "Love is creating a space for change to occur." Having to live in the certainty of what was is a recipe for boredom. Beyond that, it keeps us chained to playing small. I've always welcomed the New Year because it affords us the chance to acknowledge a past we cannot change and forge a new start. Yet oddly, "the roots of something new frequently lie in the decaying husks of something old" (Craig D. Lounsbrough). Out of our mistakes new life can grow. "When life takes unexpected turns, when the Universe shifts, we are provided with a brief moment to begin anew. These moments allow us to become fearless, and to let our perfectly created souls shine" (Cori Garrison).

Real-life stories seldom have fairy tale endings. We wind up on a different road than the one we started out on because we are ever evolving, and while we're not looking, other people have changed. We are treading on shifting sands, and in some cases, quicksand. Wanting things to stay the same is human and yet the cowardly response though there's a bit of the coward in all of us. We usually change when it hurts bad enough. What inconveniences us and pains us ironically becomes our greatest teacher. When we can't take it anymore we sever ties to old ideas of who we thought we were and take on a new identity, slightly larger and more spacious than the one we inhabited before. We embrace metamorphosis not because we welcome it, but because it is thrust upon us. Standing on the threshold of a new beginning, we instinctively fear the fall. Precipices are risky places; one misstep and you've thrown your life away. Yet the change points that push us to the end of ourselves are saviors in disguise. Like a silent undertaker, change comes knocking at our door. This is why Pema Chodrin suggests we get comfortable with not knowing...because it always comes back around.

All change is first perceived as unwelcome and intrusive. It's not until later that we look back and see what a pearl of wisdom was hidden inside it; at first all we can see is the ugly outer shell of the oyster. Were we to pry it open we'd gasp in amazement that something so ugly harbored a delicate and dazzling treasure inside. That's the way life is. It's a delicacy-a gift concealed inside horrible trapping. Life is always beautiful to the person who, despite discouragement and disappointment, decide they will welcome change rather than resist it regardless of the cruel box it comes wrapped in. Holding life loosely means surrendering our agendas for something much greater than we first imagined. The beauty of life is found in exchanging the old for the new when we create a space for change to occur.