Changing how I change.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

~ Charles Darwin

Change guarantees change. And change is all life guarantees—the most certain fact we can embrace is held in uncertainty because we don’t always know how change will come or when. We just know it never stops for anything.

So how can I change change? How can I meet this one truth head on and make its grace seamless as the setting sun? What can I do to be ready for what I don’t know, armed with what I do know?

As Darwin so wisely said, survival is about adaptability. Because with every change that comes knocking down the door or brushing gently like a breeze, we must adapt to survive.

Now for many in the country where I live, for the blessed, survival is not always about basic needs like food and shelter but for any of us survival can take us to those needs depending on what comes knocking. This past week a tornado hit the Midwest. And someone somewhere right now just got diagnosed with cancer. The tragic hits us all eventually. Some tragedy is more severe than others but to the one in the throes of their own tragic moment unfolding, all any want is to survive the moment and live on or if death is immanent, may it be painless.

For me survival includes financial struggle but today that is more the norm than the exception. For me this past summer my emotional survival found an edge I don’t like to visit as I held my heart together with dental floss, grace and a lot of love from friends and family. At one point in my life emotional survival included drinking to oblivion.

The alcohol was adaptive.

Now I don’t drink, or smoke. I work often and look for ways to supplement my income. My heart heals with every breath and the crisis of the summer melted into fall with new hope out my window.

This is how I meet change with change.

1. I adapt.

2. I breathe

3. I pray

4. I share

5.  I write

6. I do yoga

7. I meditate

8.  I read

9.  I watch television

10.  I rest

Today I take every challenge and wrap it in the gratitude that I have the ability to face what comes.

Today I keep looking for ways to improve my life while helping others. Today I package hope in my inhale and frame peace on my exhale.

Today if I am sad I let the tears flow and if I am happy I let the joy flow.

Today I live for the moment while honoring the past with the knowledge that life could be better and it could get worse and, as my elderly mom says, old age isn’t for sissy’s.

This year I think I may be alone at Thanksgiving and though this brings sadness, it also reminds me that it won’t be the first holiday alone and probably not the last.

I want to stay in the flow of change and change with the flow.

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Editor: Bryonie Wise

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