What is it with resistance? Do we resist anything other than change? Sometimes I resist the urge to shove a cookie in my mouth, or to quit doing sit ups. It seems however that anytime change is nearing, I immediately want to cling tightly to my current and past experiences, and avoid the oncoming endeavor. It is such a strange reaction because I really do know that change isn't bad. I have been through enough changes in my life to truly know that by surrendering and keeping a positive attitude render the "dreaded" change generally harmless. If it isn't harmless, it is at least a learning experience which is the reason I am alive anyway. So either way, no matter what happens, everything is as it should be. So why, still, do I feel that certain stress, the digging of my heals into the earth, my nails sharply scratching at whatever it is that I am so afraid will go away...
It isn't the actual change that I am afraid of. It is the times before the change and after the change- the adjustment period. It is the fear of not being able to adapt. It is a fear that things will suddenly go wrong and that I won't be able to find happiness again. It is a fear that I will be left out. (I am not so sure that I even know what "wrong" is anymore.) And what is under this irrational fear of mine? (I say irrational because, as I stated above, I know that change is nothing to be fearful of.) There must be a deep hurt under these fears.
The first most gigantic change that I ever experienced in my life was that of my father passing away right before my eyes. It was a sudden thing, nothing that could have been prepared for, one second your here, the next, kaputz! Do I still have a hurting place inside about this that is unexplored? I don't think that it was his death that conjured up all of my hurting feelings more than it was what happened around me as a result of his death. We did the best we could, all of us, mourning and moving on. But maybe I left something behind, maybe some part of me got swept up in the commotion of things, the swirling of energies, the change of times.
I remember that day, knowing that my life was going to be completely different from that moment on. I remember thinking that all I had ever day dreamed, my mom and dad and brother taking vacations and laughing and being happy together, was not a possibility anymore. More than anything, I changed that day.
Working through and healing this hurt, as much as I have, has helped make it possible for me to live. I have had many opportunities to face fears and defeat them, to take life by the reigns and to steer my future in any direction of my choosing. I have traveled. I have moved many times. I have started new things and I have ended old things. But today, when my roommate announced that she would be moving out and in with her boyfriend, I felt happy for them, genuinely happy for them, and a very real shot of anxiety for me. Now I'd have to find a new roommate, new furniture and cookware, I'd have to take over the lease, I'd be loosing a friend. That is where my mind jumped to. All of those things and places that, if I slow down for a second, could really be pretty cool, except for the loosing a friend thing, that isn't really cool...But again, if I just slow down I know that if she and I are to drift apart, we will drift apart, and if we don't we won't. Can I simply be grateful for the time that we have shared? For what I have learned? For the very moment???
My only solution, the only thing that sounds completely comforting and secure to me to do with this is to just offer it up...to someone else. I have found myself in situations sometimes wondering how on earth I would handle it, or wishing it could be for someone else and not me. I have found that often things just work themselves out, and that if there are things that seem much too big for me, I don't have to carry them alone. I don't have to shove them onto someone else either, but I can ask for help. I can offer the things that I am confused, stressed, or upset about and get them off of me. Who am I making these offerings to, you ask?
Some people offer their god's delicious fruits and beautiful flowers. My god? My god gets offered all the shitty things I can't handle! And a gracious thank you. No really, I don't know if it is god, or spirit, or universe, or nothingness, I don't know what it is....perhaps it is just the space between here and there, but whatever it is, I am allowed to offer things and issues up into it's vastness. That is what it's there for. And to be honest, it feels good to know that I can do that, to know that if I can't figure anything out, that I can just throw it all up into the sky and ask for a little assistance and then tune in and see what happens.
So that is what I am going to do with this circumstance. Dear who/whatever, for however many reasons, I am having trouble figuring out how to feel, what to feel, what to do, and where to go with this current situation of having to get a new roommate. At this moment, it seems much bigger than I can handle, and I would appreciate some help. I also want to throw in there that I am open to whatever it is that may be happening for my greatest and highest good. Thanks.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
And now, I get to just stop thinking about it, because even if I didn't find a roommate, fix the world or heal my inner child, I did something, and the something I did is enough right now. I am sure that I will gain more insight and clarity as time moves forward with not only this situation, but also with this issue which I recognize has more to do with opening rather than just resisting.
It feels good here, in this space, like this. That is all I need to know.
