Friday, 31 July 2020
Ciao tutti!
I’m in Tuscany – the region I have totally fallen in love with. I don’t know what exactly it is around here, but something magical is keeping me in its grip. I’m staying in the countryside, just outside of a village called San Casciano in Val di Pesa and I just can’t get enough of the breath-taking scenery here (as I’m sure those who have seen my Instagram stories will have noticed). San Casciano is cute, full of little restaurants and cafés and a cool outdoors event venue with movie nights, concerts and other happenings organized during the summer months. It’s around 37 degrees here currently.
I live in a restored farm house complex with its wonderful owner Mari, who also hosts the Sorripa Evolution Centre and her Murano glass jewellery gallery here (https://www.evolutioncentre.it/). The centre’s space can be booked for any kind of retreats, workshops or courses – heads-up for anyone looking for a fab place in Tuscany for their event (accommodation, extra curriculum program and catering available, too)!
A secret castle ruin we found with my dear friend Nora, my mommy and the beautiful Tuscan landscapes I adore
I’ve been inside my own little bubble for quite a while now, deep in thought and self-discovery mode. Recently my ponderings have reached a climax of some epiphanies and aha-moments. Having been out here for eight months at this point, I’ve gained so much distance to my usual surroundings and the believes stuck to them that I’ve managed to build new perspectives. I’ve also found support persons and community to accompany me on my spiritual journey. I feel like I’ve reached a whole new level of understanding around both myself and the way I view the world.
Today I want to talk about change and why we should all become change lovers.
The only certain thing in life is change (and death). I’ve studied change management at university and supported managing change at work, but I think all along I’ve missed the bigger picture. We are wired to hate change. It’s new, uncomfortable and fundamentally shitty. In an experiment where people were given two pieces of the same chocolate, but were told that the first one was an old recipe from years ago, and the second, a brand new one, the first chocolate was systematically rated to be tastier than the second. It is deeply ingrained within us that old is valuable, wise and safe – simply better.
Now from my studies and experience, the fact that we dislike change and need support around it, was known to me, but the scope, forms and purpose of change have recently become clearer. It’s not just the big moves that are defined as change – the new organizational structure, the move to a new house or your mom’s new boyfriend. It’s the dude that cut you off in traffic, the renewed lunch menu in your favourite restaurant you like to eat at on Tuesdays and the idiot who finished the toilet paper without providing a new roll.
When we fall too much in love with how we expect our life (the big and small stuff) to look and be like, we are faced with constant disappointment and anxiety around changed circumstances. But we ought to remember that one of the only certainties in life is indeed change, so we could make our lives a whole lot easier by stopping to resist it. We know that we cannot control change, so why not concentrate our energy on what we can control: our outlook and reaction to it?
I’ve been into spirituality for a while now, but I used to not fully grasp the concept of connectedness. How all living beings are energy, connected to each other, the world and space around us and held together by a force bigger than all of us. I now see the connectedness everywhere. I don’t believe that things just happen; no situation or person presents itself in our lives without a reason. The force – I call it the universe, but you might call it god, spirit, creator, divine, life force or something else – always works in our favour. The important part is that we are in the position to co-create our own lives with the universe by (among other things) choosing how we react to the situations presented to us.
The question is: when life throws a circumstance in your face that you did or didn’t foresee, how do you choose to react to it – knowing that this thing / situation / person was cast into the mix for your benefit? We would make our lives flow easier by meeting it with a growth mindset. A mentality of; how can I turn this sucky situation around, so I can see how exactly it’s meant to benefit me? How can I create meaning to it? What is this difficult person teaching me about myself?
So when your colleague is being a bitch, you can choose to counter attack her and start a new round of gossip about this incident at the after-work drinks session on Friday, or you could swallow your annoyance, respond to her with compassion and buy her a drink on that Friday (after all, she really looks like she could use one.) When your bus doesn’t arrive on time, you can freak out and ruin your entire morning by sending the public transport system mentally to hell, or you can let your boss know that you will be late and start listening to a new podcast* or meditate while waiting. When you don’t hear back from the company you had a job interview with by the day they promised to, you can paint dramatic end-of the world scenarios in your mind and destroy a good night’s sleep, or take some deep breaths to calm your nervous system and decide to press the refresh button of your email again tomorrow.
*check out my new book and podcast recommendations on the book club page - loads of exciting additions under the non-fiction: mind & spirit section!
We like to think that we know exactly what we want and how to get there. But honestly, I think most of us as have no idea of what we’re doing, what our life purpose is (next week’s blog post topic) and how to get there. But we should start trusting in the universe to support us and remember that we are only co-creators of our lives, meaning, we never have full control of how things play out. And even if everything that happens to us arrives in our lives to benefit us, it might not always look like that initially. We can, however, find meaning, when we try to.
You see, your bus might have been late, because would it have been on time, there might have been an accident. You learning to show compassion to your bitchy colleague or learning to be more patient with that important email response, might be skills you really will need in a later stage of your life for something important. From this perspective, these inconveniences really do look like benefits, right?
Have you ever wondered why you didn’t get into that school you applied for seven times? Or why you haven’t won the lottery yet? Perhaps these are not the paths that will lead to your ultimate happiness. Or maybe you just need to learn to be more patient or to manage your finances better or become more independent. There are countless options here and only you can find the actual meaning for these circumstances in your life. Sometimes it takes a long time for us to see meaning, especially when it comes to the bigger and more serious inconveniences; the end of a relationship, a significant job role shift or even death. But we should trust in the fact that in everything the universe offers to us there certainly is meaning and some benefit.
Of course, behind every trigger or annoyance is some deeply rooted experience from our past that causes us to instinctively react in a specific way. So, working on getting to the bottom of our inner stories and processing these is an important part of healing and being able to change how we react to situations (yet another huge topic I will dive into). However, I believe that by shifting our mindset towards change and life’s unpredictability can already lift a lot of weight of our shoulders. And by starting with the smaller, everyday little situations, we can train ourselves to manager bigger changes better.
Even if we perhaps cannot start managing our reactions straight away, becoming conscious and even noting these situations afterwards, will help us to eventually achieve shifts. So it’s fine that you can’t contain your rage in traffic, or will throw a tantrum in reaction to your sister being late again next week, but think about these situations afterwards; how you can actually flip these changed circumstances around to be meaningful. Slowly, we will be able to see the benefits, find meaning and learn to react in healthier ways; to be expecting constant change rather than being constantly surprised by it. To start embracing change as change lovers, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Another shot of the castle ruin, a drone pic from the house we stayed at with my parents (in Montespertoli) and my hiking buddy Nora (@norathexplorax)
I used to view my sense of organization and planning skills as part of my superpower and somehow connected to my life purpose. Whereas these qualities certainly have value, I now also see them as my weakness in a way. When my days and life were planned out and the universe naturally threw all sorts of obstacles in my way, I used to react with a lot of stress. I now understand that the outlook of the world working against me and trying to control everything, set me out for a lot of disappointment and anger – wasted energy. This approach did not work for me and definitely didn’t promote my well-being.
I now have a deep trust in the universe always functioning in our favour – even in surprising ways – and that we play a part in co-creating our lives. With this new outlook, I am optimistic to achieve some shifts in my reactions and have already started practicing. After all, one of the only certainties in life is change, and also we are capable of it :)
This weekend I’ll be attending my first Vipassana meditation retreat! At the end of next week, I’ll be on the move again, but I’ll be back on the blog soon with more burning topics. As always, comments, thoughts and feedback are very welcome. Much love!
Bacio 💋 Cass