Baby Steps

Art by Kurai

The process of change in our lives is one that is endlessly fascinating. We court safety and security, a warm blanket of stasis, in the face of perpetual motion. We cultivate evolution but not all change propels us forward. And that which does shunt us does not always stick.

People change for two main reasons: either their minds have been opened or their hearts have been broken
~ Steven Atkinson

I've been musing that perhaps the dark clouds I sense are less to do with the long overdue holiday I'm craving and more a sense of foreboding as our world tilts and shifts on every level. Change is ever as unsettling as it is quietly thrilling.

Storms and natural disasters abound as Mama Nature rages at what we have done to disrupt or destroy her natural processes and places. And yet the Schumann frequency is increasing to unprecedented levels as our perceptions begin to creak, leaking new ways of existing into our consciousness. Challenges are everywhere we look - ideologically, politically, socially - shoving us on to a collective fast track for resistance and activism, engagement and withdrawal. It is an exhilarating and exhausting, all too heady cocktail.

So how do you cope with change? With growth? When learning to walk on strange new feet, do you tend to perservere or give up all too quickly? When the ground underfoot is a foreign land, do you only crave the safety of what you know? Do you coddle your learning like a supportive parent, endlessly encouraging and rewarding, or do you berate your lack of progress, punishing your stumbling and blaming your setbacks on all outside of your self?

Planet Earth and her teeming inhabitants have been crammed aboard the Change Train. The initial hurtling is knocking us down or off balance. Watch carefully how you respond. Observe without judgement or tut tutting. Give your good self the space and time and love it takes to adapt. Narrow your focus to that which you can manage: once mastered, expand out from there. Be kind and patient and encouraging. Reach out to those who will respond in kind and be their champion too.

We need to plant victory gardens before our triumph and nurture their steady growth, no matter the weather. We must keep learning, retraining, expanding. But every single time we do, we must remember that baby steps are crucial if we're ever going to learn to run.

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Experience taught her.
Hurt raised her.
Neither defined her.
~ Adrian Michael

Words c. Kerrie Basha, 2017