A woman marries a man hoping he will change; but he doesn’t. A man marries a woman hoping she won’t change; but she does.  

I got something to reflect on last week during the storm. Friday is the day I write my theme, but I couldn’t because we had a power outage pretty much all day. I was disappointed as that was the only day I had to write. But my 9 y/o Sudhir who has never experienced anything out of the ordinary in his very sheltered life began to get concerned – what if the electricity never comes back? So I reminded him that I grew up in India without electricity, where we used oil lanterns. Later on when we did have electricity, it was only for a few hours as the government had planned power cuts. I also told him that in some parts of the world, people live through much much more hardship than this for much much longer periods.  He was quick to answer: but in those countries they were expecting things to go wrong so they can handle it – not here.

Its been said that holding on to change, you will get rope burn – because it will change.

Meditation teacher Ajan Chah would say holding a cup, this is already broken.  So when it eventually breaks, because it will, then I can say I enjoyed  it when I had it.

Reflection:

Bring to mind someone or something significant in your life, if they or it were to change or go away, how would you navigate the situation? Can you reflect on this change as if its real?

If you are going through some significant changes in your life right now, how are you navigating them?

Relax and see if it’s ok to rest in change.  You can rest by relaxing and being present and through this you can develop a capacity to be with the change.   

Poet Mary Oliver writes:
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.