LET'S TALK ABOUT . . .




                                                  "THE WINDS OF CHANGE"




After seven months of Winter with temperatures below 20 C followed by a cold, damp Spring it is good to finally look out my window and see the promise of Summer by mid-July.  Here's hoping!  It reminds me that even climate can change, temporarily or permanently.  There are lots of "climates" that are changing in our world(s).  Applying Webster, it indicates that "the prevailing atmosphere or environment" is undergoing some significant shifts.


I am fascinated by what does and does not change in any given system when change is indicated.  I think this is one of the greatest mistakes made.  History bears it out!  In an attempt to solve a current situation a solution is embraced that may appear to deal with the precipitating issue but fails to address the deeper, underlying source of the problem.  To do this well requires a lot of thought from all different angles and at all different levels.  Treating symptoms is not always a permanent cure.


It is so easy to buy into the tyranny of the urgent to resolve our anxieties related to a given situation.  We need to look at where those situations are generating anxieties within ourselves.  The external often points to something deeper that needs addressing within us.  Our need to be okay in the moment often sabotages our being okay in the bigger picture.  We often find ourselves in repetitive situations or relationships.  We fail to learn the lessons of the past and present and need to repeat in the future.


Getting stuck in "patternistic" behaviors or even cycles of the same is often the result of such failures.  It is difficult for us to think outside our given paradigms and stretch the parameters of the same.  This is where education often comes in; it forces us to challenge and push the parameters of our thinking.  This is where therapy can serve a purpose in our lives.  It is good for us to grow.  All learning indicates change.  Change is not necessarily healthy or unhealthy; it can be just change.


Sometimes surrounding ourselves with only or mostly those who affirm and agree with our thinking only entrenches these patterns deeper and the cycles continue.  Change and difference are so threatening to us; they generate a lot of anxieties within.  We often miss out on what is available to us through our inabilities to tolerate both.


Life is full of conflicts begging our attention and ultimately solutions.  We selectively choose which we will participate in to work toward solutions.  Often we triage the conflicts in our lives into a hierarchy of priorities.  Sometimes we hope they just simply resolve themselves or go away so we never have to face those conflicts both within and outside of ourselves.


I wonder what it would take for us to truly come to terms with conflict as a part of living in this world?  What would it take for us to not fear difference and change?  What would it mean for us to embrace our own anxieties responsibly and wrestle them down?


Perhaps the task before us is to learn to love non-anxiously.  Mature love has learned to deal with the fears and anxieties that cause us to dread even approaching or walking into those arenas.  Do we understand that entities like dread, paranoia, even compulsion are replete with guilt; or worse, they may affect our very identities and become shame-driven?


We are not living in simpler times; that is what we long for!  We are not going to be able to always make that happen.  Perhaps we need to come to terms with ourselves so it is easier to enter into the conflicts of our lives and the world around us.  I cannot always change my world but I can think about who I am in relation to my world, what I can change about myself.  Sometimes that is the best we have!


Until next time . . . this is, Just Janice!