“The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.” -Joseph Campbell

What is normal?

If I’ve learned anything over the past several years it’s that there is really no such thing as normal. There’s only ever constant change, and we either accept, or struggle against that change.

We have been living most of our lives in our comfort zones. Safe, warm, relatively happy, and rarely appreciating all that we have. Now, when things have changed to such a degree as to make us extremely uncomfortable we want our normal back.

What if it never comes back?

What if this is our new normal? What then?

We are being given an opportunity to look closely at our lives, ourselves, and the people around us.

We are being given an opportunity to see where we need to make necessary changes that will help us all move forward.

Change happens for a reason, and it’s never to return us to normal.

Up until four years ago I was living that way. Safe. Warm. Relatively happy. That was, until the bottom dropped out. Not just once, but several times.

I suffered a bulging disc that was so bad it literally brought me to my knees. I had to crawl on the floor to get anywhere.

Then, I had surgery thinking that would get me back to normal. It didn’t. I still struggled to walk.

I started a new kind of therapy hoping that would get me back to normal. For a while it worked, until it didn’t.

While I was healing, I lost my younger sister, and nephew in a tragic car accident.

My life would never be normal again.
Normal no longer existed for me.

Since then, I’ve been diagnosed with Epstein Barr Virus, and have been on bedrest as my body heals on its own.

I’ve struggled with anxiety, low self worth, and depression. I’ve wandered through the land of grief over the loss of my sister, my nephew, my business, and my life as I’d known it. As unbelievably painful as it’s been, I’m completely positive that I will regain my health, and live a full beautiful life, but it will never go back to normal.

I have absolutely no doubt that what has happened for me-yes, for me is propelling me forward into the life I’m meant to live. It’s been a huge wake-up call for me, and honestly I don’t want to return to normal. Normal was a safe zone that kept me from making the changes I needed to make.

Normal was a way for me to continue being comfortable, and making as little progress as possible. Maybe just a dip of the toes here, or there, never really fully committing to anything whole-heartedly. Normal kept me complacent.

Now, I find myself, as we all find ourselves, forced to take a good hard look at our lives, and acknowledge what isn’t working.

Now we are being forced to ask ourselves what we need to do to get through this. What will it take to get past it? How long we struggle is up to us.

I can tell you from my own experience, that the more you fight against the current of change the harder you make it for yourself, and others. Your best option is to stay calm, surrender to it, learn what you need to right now.

Be open. This isn’t about conspiracies. Those are distractions that keep us from focusing on what’s important, and necessary.

It’s about you. What are you here for? What gifts do you have to offer? What do you need to let go of? How can you be of service in this new world, this new reality?

Acceptance of where we are, and acknowledgement that serious changes are called for, are what’s in front of us.

Going back to normal is one more way for us to bury our heads in the sand, and ignore the serious issues that need to be addressed within ourselves, our lives, and society as a whole.

So no, I don’t want to go back to normal. I want change. I want to know that the people that are out there fighting for us, and certainly the ones that have died, will be honored.

I want to know that this was not for nothing. I need to believe that something good can come from this. I do believe that.

This is a time of incubation, learning, processing, and metamorphosis.

Nothing will ever be the same. Let us take this opportunity, and not waste it.