This natural cactus fencing can be found all over Bonaire. Like many other things, it could be considered prickly or beautiful.
It all depends on how you look at it.
In January of 2020, I had a conversation with my friend Mimi Troung, who happens to be an amazing astrologer. Years before that conversation, she had done my astrology birth chart - when we didn’t know each other.
From the chart, she described the years in my life when giant change had occurred. She was able to tell me if the changes were financial, had to do with my home, or if they revolved around family or relationships.
During our conversation in January 2020, she told me my next few years would be “full of massive change.”
“Noooo!" I howled as my shoulders scrunched up, my fists clenched, and my chest tightened. “Suzanne, change doesn’t have to be bad. Change can be good,” she said.
In that moment, I did not want to deal with more change. I just wanted to find a nice, small, safe, healthy, affordable place where I could continue healing and live quietly.
HA! Hilarious, right?
Then Covid came, and after a few months of feeling trapped in my apartment with The Terrible Man Upstairs, I left LA and hid out in the Green Mountains of Vermont through the first part of the pandemic. When the snow started to melt and it was time for me to go back to LA and live in the apartment underneath The Terrible Man Upstairs, the Better Plan was born.
I got rid of my apartment, car, and just about everything else and went to beautiful Bonaire, then Ireland, and back to the mountains.
Now it’s time for more change. And that has me thinking a lot about how we deal with change.
Most people don’t like change because the impact is unknown. We like to know what’s going to happen. We like to plan. We like to know how we’re going to feel about something.
We like what we know. Knowing what we know makes us feel comfortable. Most change makes us feel uncomfortable.
Maybe that’s because assume we tend to associate all change with big scary changes like losing a job, a loved one’s death, or an accident.
What if instead, we associated change with good things like completing a novel, falling in love, or moving into a new home?
What if instead of assuming change will be prickly, we focus on associating change with opportunity and have faith that change can be a beautiful thing?
What if when change heads our way, we sit quietly, take some deep breaths, and ask ourselves, what has this change come to teach me? Does it have to be prickly? In what ways could it beautiful? And how can I use this change as an opportunity to grow?
Focusing on how change could be beautiful takes practice. Lots and lots of practice. But with every change and lots of practice, I've found that staying in the flow gets easier.
My plan is to keep on practicing. And by now you know, I will let you know how it goes.
How do you move through change?