Witnessing Ways You Change + How You Respond

Listen to the audio of How You Respond to Change below (9 mins).

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How We Respond to Invitations to Change:

Quick, compassionate, and gentle note: this is a contemplative course. And with contemplation, meditation and prayer, with our spiritual journey, with soul work, with inner inquiry, inventory and exploration, we want to cultivate not only curiosity, but a great deal of compassion. Because some of what we're going to be doing in this course, like we do, any time we're asking big questions of ourselves and existence, and the Sacred, is looking at how we respond to certain situations and invitations.

So, Christmas is coming. It's loaded with layered meanings, societal obligations, social traditions, and expectations. And then there's this spiritual invitation that happens too.  Oftentimes, we feel that one invitation from society moves at a different speed than the spiritual or soulful invitation of this season invites us into. Sometimes, we feel pulled in two directions, and it's really painful. Sometimes, we feel pulled in two directions, and it feels complimentary, like a lot of reflection is then met with some relief and joy as we kind of surface, and go out, and get social, and do things that are very traditional, and maybe more extroverted, and outgoing. And then when that gets really full, or overly stimulating and abundant, the spiritual calls us back home back in towards some quiet and some slow, and some deeper places.

But the fact is, we have no idea, really, how we're going to respond to these invitations. There are holidays and seasons, I think we all can relate to, that have very unexpected twists and turns, things from the past can kind of come up unexpectedly. We can feel a lot of heartbreak, tenderness, loneliness. At the same time, we can also be feeling joy and connection, we can be feeling a lot of extroverted, social gathering, and then lots of slow internal gathering. What I want to invite you to remember and to consider, is to go gently with yourself on this path.

For four weeks, you are going to be given invitations about how change can happen spiritually and personally in life. And then you're going to be asked whether you relate to that kind of change. Do you relate and connect to invitations of slowing down and hibernation? Do you relate or connect to invitations of release and outgrowing something old and familiar, so that you have to let go of it? Do you relate and connect to invitations of going within and reassessing your identity, your sense of belonging, your sense of self? Do you relate and connect to invitations around creating and birthing something and then realizing that it's not even done yet, you still have more to go? These are the themes that are going to be present in this course. And especially in the backdrop of a spiritual pull to go slow, perhaps, and a social or traditional pull to go bigger or to go faster, we can feel some of these invitations towards how we change to be not very fun, soft or expansive. They can feel provoking. They can feel brittle. They can feel sharp. They can feel tender. They can even feel angering. They can feel confusing. They can also feel so exciting and so hopeful that we almost kind of feel detached in our sense of joy and wonder about it.

So, I just want to say again and again, this course is going to be looking at how you respond this Advent, to the particular invitations you are feeling in your life. Please, before you get started, remember to be gentle and compassionate. Maybe, you're recognizing that some of your responses to invitations of change are defensiveness, or self protection, or judgment, or overwork, or perfectionism. Nothing about this course is asking you to judge yourself and be mean and hateful towards the fact that that is your truth. The only thing this course is asking you to do, is observe as best as you can, how you're responding to these invitations, and then sit and listen to the Sacred and your own soul, about whether you would like to consider a new way of looking at your response to change and growth, whether you'd like to look at a new way of coping and managing seasons of growth and change. It's just an assessment, a curiosity, a wonder, again, it's not a judgment.

I don't want at all to alarm you or make you feel concerned about this, I just want to honor and respect the fact that we are going into some deep corners within ourselves, within the Christmas story, and within our shared traditions. And sometimes those places get loud or constrictive. And sometimes as a response, we get excited, or very withdrawn. And we're just asking ourselves to notice how we respond. And then to be very honest about that response to ourselves, and to Spirit, so that we can cultivate, over time, a kind of trusted rapport with our soul and with Spirit that lets us say, now or in the future, “I'd like to approach this differently next time. Or I'd like to do more of what I see myself doing in these situations.” It's just about getting to know yourself, getting to know the Sacred.

I recognize that there's a lot of noise internally and externally that can make that knowing, challenging. Okay, I'm probably speaking in circles and saying this over and over again. And for that, I apologize, but one of the ways that I respond to something that I know is tender and full of change and growth is through this Ignatian principle of repetition and compassion. And I will stop here because I think you've probably gotten the message go gently, go gently, go gently with how you observe your own change in response to it. Just listen and befriend. Throw out the moral courtroom. Throw away the scales that say you're good or bad. None of that's necessary. And let's get ready to go on an adventure. Yeah, let's get ready to go on an adventure. Okay, thanks again friends more soon.