Change

Yoga is powerful.  Someone I admire once said that doing yoga twice a week will change your body.  Doing yoga five days a week will change your life.

As a busy mother of three, I can only dream of practicing yoga more than once a week.  While vacationing recently, my mom gave our family a beautiful and generous gift.  She hired a yogi to come and teach yoga on the beach (three mornings in one week)!!

It was glorious.  Being outdoors, feeling the warmth of the sun on my face, the wind blowing my hair, the coolness of my feet in the soft cold sand, and hearing the waves crashing nearby was surreal.

We had three different yogis that week, by choice.  Two of the three included a guided meditation, which I always love.  One of the yogis had been inspired by an Indie Arie song.  She said the only thing constant in life is change.

Profound.

The only thing constant in life is change.  I started thinking about it.  I am not a person who generally runs from change, in fact, I embrace it most days.  I believe that life on Earth is a continuous evolution; that as people, we are constantly growing and changing.  Plants, birds, animals, humans, cells, energies; everything is changing.

I think back to the child I was, the young woman I developed into throughout the high school years, and the free spirited woman I became in college.  I think of all of the things I would have missed out on, had I not branched out and tried something new: home brew, cliff jumping, artichoke, freshly made juice, skiing, getting a tattoo, overseas travel, hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, chiropractic adjustments, meditation, reiki, and even yoga!

As a mother, it’s even easier to see.  My children are growing, learning new things, developing their personalities, trying new things, testing boundaries, and exploring new things.  As they change, I change too.  I’ve had to alter discipline methods (many times).  I’ve had to change the way my home was child-proofed (I thought it was perfectly safe until my son came along!)  I’ve changed the way I perceive things too, like extended breastfeeding, movie ratings, circumcision, buying organic produce, chiropractics, and teasing.

Philosopher and psychologist Carl Jung once said, “What you resist persists.”  I have found this to be completely true in my life.  The more I try and control things, the more they seem to spin away and out of control.  The more I let things be, the more things fall right into place.

Just like the waves in the ocean undulate and never stay the same, so must we as humans.  If things never changed, I shudder to think of how oppressive our society would be today.  So today and every day, I salute change!