Change is a tricky and beautiful process. I’m endlessly amazed at our ability to transform, shift, and create, whether that’s new habits, new mindsets, or new lives. But I’m also aware how change is often a slow and winding process that can leave us feeling stuck, discouraged, and convinced we’re failing. Whatever process of change I’m in at the moment, I find it goes a whole lot better if I remember the following:

Change is energy work. Forming habits, shifting patterns, and creating something new involves working with and moving the energy of our thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. Energy is dynamic. It expands and contracts. It’s always on the move.  The energetic expansion that comes with a breakthrough, insight, or step forward is often followed by a contraction as our system recalibrates, as the energy seeks new equilibrium, and as the old, dying thing fights for its life. This might not feel so good. It may feel like you’ve lost the thread. All of this is normal. Be gentle with yourself when there is big, energetic movement happening in your life and self. Rest, drink water, cuddle with loved ones, all that good stuff.

Change is not about linear progress. It is not about sustaining the energy of a breakthrough indefinitely.  Change is forgetting, remembering, then forgetting again. It’s a process of laying new tracks in our brains, step by step, through conscious attention and intention.

Change is deeper than the things we’re building from and around it, whether that’s states of being (like feeling more calm, grounded, and clear), habits (numbers of days in a row we've meditated or gone to the gym), or tangible creations (words written, meals cooked, canvasses painted).  Real, sustainable, durable change happens when we go back in after we’ve missed a day, fallen off the wagon, or drifted from our calm, clear center.  It’s the shift we create within when we notice where we are, allow ourselves to be there, look around for the lost thread, and pick it up where we find it to try again.

When you’re in the midst of a messy transformation, what do you most need to remember? How can you show yourself love, gentleness, and care in the midst of the changes, chosen or unchosen, rocking your world?