Transposing Life

My mother once told me the only constants in life are change and death.

She shared this wisdom with me while my life was being tumultuously turned upside down.

The other day my friend quoted Ann Voskamp who said "life change comes when we receive life with thanks and ask for nothing to change".

It took me a while to comprehend Voskamp's quote, as did the quote by my mother. I could understand what these quotes were saying but I didn't know how to implemented them into my life.

First I had to decide what change really was.

This is what I came up with:

Change, whether in a physical form, an emotional state, a mental processing or spiritual shift, is what keeps human kind maturating. Change is the essence of human kind. To fully live, we must change. 

I believe what Voskamp is trying to imply is: when a person feels comfortable enough in their own skin and can accept, appreciate and give thanks for life as it is, is the only time a person can begin to accept change and grow from the changes.

We cannot stop change from happening, it is a constant. But change cannot be considered a "life change" if a person is not open and receptive to the idea of it.

Over the past few years life has given me many nudges that should have allowed for "life change". On rare occasions I was receptive to the nudges but most of the time I was not in a place where I accepted the idea of change.

I agree with Voskamp, that it does help to be comfortable in our own skin when accepting change but I believe we can accept change without being completely comfortable.

I think a person must be one of two things to be in a place to accept life change:
1) A person must be strong in who they are and what they believe
2) Be completely broken and searching for a way out

I have made one major "life change" when I was 20. This was a time when I had hit rock bottom and was scrambling to get my life together. All I can say is thank God for family, therapy and Narcotics Anonymous.

Now that I am almost 25 I am finding that life has yet again nudged me to create a "life change" but this time I am not going to make it because I have hit rock bottom. I am making it because I believe in myself.

I am not saying it is any easier this time around. I feel it is almost harder trusting myself now that I am becoming confident in who I am. When I was changing my life when I had hit rock bottom I knew I had no where to go but up, but this time my life is not in pieces. It is not perfect but I have many amazing blessings surrounding me and it would be easy to stay stagnent. It literally scares the shit out of me to think about the major life changes coming my way (but seriously, when I get emotional my stomach tells me about it).

But fear cannot hold us back. The opposite of fear is trust. We must trust in ourselves, we must trust in the life that has been given to us and  truly believe that there is a bigger plan set in place.


To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. ~Henri Bergson