riding the wave | summer reblog

What to do when you fear change...big change

Originally posted August 2015

Change. 

Life changing change.

None of us are immune.

Today, my eldest is off to college. It seems almost laughable that she could be old enough for college.

And yet, here she is.

Here we are.

We've been preparing for a while now. Even so, I find that each of us is alternatively filled with excitement, anticipation, anxiety and worry.

The other night anxiety and worry ruled supreme for my daughter.

What to do? What to do?

Seeing as it was late and we were all tired, I soon found myself cuddled up with my high schooler under one arm and my college-bound daughter under the other.

I knew her feelings were scary to her. 

I knew leaving home was scary to her.

I knew not being able to control her future was scary to her.

This was a big change with big feelings.

And on this night, she wanted nothing to do with this change or these feelings.

As we lay in the dark, I began to talk and settled into the image of a wave.

I likened her feelings and the impending change to this wave.

Can you see it? 

Can you see it in your own life? 

Imagine the wave bearing down as we all float in the water.

What are our choices in this moment?

Well...

we could swim against the wave

or

we could ride the wave.

If we swim against the wave...fight and resist it...we deplete our own energy and become further exhausted and stressed in the process. 

We may even find ourselves in the same place we started...having gained nothing for our struggle. 

Alternatively,

if we ride the wave...let it carry us without resistance...we preserve our own energy and strength and can see that the wave naturally extinguishes itself.

We may even find that we are closer to our desired destination...having gained ground in our flow with the wave.

And so it is with our feelings and any big change we may be facing. 

We can fight and resist

or

we can ride.

When we resist, we once again deplete our own energy and become further exhausted and stressed in the process. 

We may even find ourselves in the same place we started...facing the same or perhaps even more intense feelings than before...having gained nothing for our struggle. 

Alternatively,

if we ride...letting our feelings wash through us without resistance...we allow them to extinguish themselves naturally and perhaps in the process gain some clarity.

We may even find that we are closer than we realized to our desired destination...having gained a new perspective in our allowance and acceptance of our feelings and the change to come.

And so, as we lay there that evening, the waves came again and again.

And rather than resist...we rode the waves.