I hate change.
I heard you’ve been going through it?
No fiber in my body was built to endure it. And I think that’s a cruel prank of nature, because change is truly, in all its cliched glory, inevitable. If we cannot deal with it, are we even strong?
And yes, a thousand times yes. You are strong.
Not a lot of people in the world have the privilege of experiencing a wide range of emotions. So if you do, you’re living a very emotionally rich life and I will push you to celebrate that even if you’re having a day that feels like rock bottom.
So how do I deal with it?
On some days I don’t.
I think it’s okay to be human and throw a tantrum or feel too weak to soldier through. It’s only healthy.
Some other days I just lay on the floor. It really works. Don’t underestimate the power of some good floor time.
But other days just I try to push through by putting a positive spin on the things going wrong, because even in all my cynicality, I still believe that whatever happens, happens for the best.
That might make you angry, and appropriately so. How can THIS be for the best? I don’t even feel like myself?
Give it some time. Give yourself some time. You are not a machine. You are trying your best.
It takes time for it to get better, but a gradual slope up is easier than a steep one. Atleast if it’s gradual, you can see your destination somewhere in the distance.
It might get blurry, but it’s still there.
It’s yours, and it’s waiting.
Some days you really just have to look at everything in your life that makes you happy, that stabilizes and grounds you, and feel the overwhelming warmth of it in your heart.
All of that is yours. It will stay. It has, for so long.
And you will still hurt. You will still cry. There will be nights when you regress and hold your body as close to your chest and weep in the middle of all of the pandemonium. And it will still be healthy. You cannot expect yourself to be okay all the time, and you cannot expect yourself to not worry about something changing inside of you. It’s new, it’s strange. How is it supposed to feel okay?
It’s okay to feel lonely through change. Hold your hand to your heart with me right now, feel it beat hard and strong. That’s you. That’s brave. That’s very much alive and fighting. That is all of your power. Do not underestimate what a beating heart can do.
Change isn’t meant to be dealt with alone, despite everything you hear about pseudo self-love and independence. You are meant to have support, you are meant to have family, you are meant to be held.
Acknowledging that is okay.
Your body is allowed to display fatigue. Don’t try covering it up. You can be chronically fatigued everyday while still getting in all the due work and eating all your meals and sleeping for seven hours every night.
And that is okay.
It doesn’t mean you’re not chronically exhausted. It just means you’re still functional.
Let your body alarm you if something is going wrong with it. Tune in and listen if it’s been trying to grab your attention, and you will be grateful to yourself for doing that because nobody knows what you need better than yourself.
There’s no best strategy you can fall back on when it comes to dealing with change. It could either come very naturally to you, or it might be the hardest thing you find yourself doing. It’s subjective, and that’s how it’s supposed to be.
Sometimes, it’s okay to just breathe your way through your days while validating and acknowledging every feeling and every emotion that comes and goes. Just acknowledge it. Sit with it. A lot of healing comes with facing. You will hurt more if you shut them down. Because that would mean you are shutting yourself out. It’s so important to hold space for your authentic experience. Nobody should get to tell you what you should be feeling or should be not feeling. If you’re feeling something, it is automatically an authentic, true and real experience. Let yourself have that.
Take care of yourself a little extra on the harder days when you’re doing this, because most times we end up doing just the opposite. Please drink water. Eat all your meals. Smile at your reflection once in a while. Put on the music and dance in your underwear in your room. Take sunset pictures.
And repeat this everyday, even on days it gets really really hard to, till one day, it suddenly starts feeling okay.
I promise, you will be okay.
You will know how to breathe again.