How to embrace the alchemy of change
As much as you want to, you can’t go backwards.
These are words that none of us like to hear, but we can’t escape them. So, I wanted to write about this because resistance to suffering and change seems to be a recurring theme, with my clients as well as with myself.
As a Kinesiologist, I help people process emotions, particularly those that are hidden just below the surface that they don’t know are there, and I’m constantly amazed at how often clients are a mirror, reflecting something I’m feeling or going through myself.
This is something that no one tells you when you get into this line of work and it can come as both an uncomfortable as well as a wonderful surprise.
So, when clients come in and mirror how I’m feeling, it can be a wake up call for me too.
The one that’s come up this month has been about resistance. In particular, resisting the state that we’re in, wishing we could go back to the familiar or fast-forward through the unknown.
We all fear change, it can be deeply uncomfortable, yet change is where we experience remarkable growth, as long as we let go of who we were and allow ourselves to embrace who we’re becoming.
Trying to go backwards never works
Suffering is often a companion to change. It’s very unlikely to experience one without the other.
When we’re in a state of suffering, whether it’s emotional or physical, it can be deeply uncomfortable and alienating, bringing up a huge amount of fear, anger and grief.
Especially with physical symptoms that are stopping us from living our lives and stealing the joy away from us. This can make us feel very resentful and resistant, putting us firmly in the ‘why me’ state of mind that is a hard one to break out of.
When we’re in a state of suffering, we want to do anything to get out of it, and one of the easiest ways to do this is to go backwards to the safety and familiarity of a past version of ourselves.
This is what our mind knows to be real, true and attainable, so surely, it thinks, we can go back to that person.
Yet, we can never go back to a past version of ourselves, whether it’s physical, spiritual or emotional. We’ve outgrown them and so to try and exist in this state is impossible. We can’t ever unlearn. Evolution doesn't go backwards, and neither can we.
There have been multiple times in the past three years where I’ve wished I could have gone back to when life felt simple, safe and familiar. The world changed for me, and I changed with it, and at times the ride was so uncomfortable, I wanted nothing more than to rewind time and cocoon myself in the simplicity of life before.
I’ve also been trying to recreate the life I had in London in Cambridge because it’s what feels familiar to me. Yet, I am a vastly different person to who I was when I lived there and what I think would fit me, no longer does.
This in itself has thrown me wildly off centre as I’ve grappled with finding my place here. I forgot how deeply unsettling it feels to move, whether it’s moving homes, jobs, lifestyles or partners. We try to acclimatise as quickly as possible but it takes so much longer than we realise.
I’ve been desperate to find familiarity and stable footing, defaulting to using a past version of me as a reference point, which has thrown me even further off balance.
Why we resist change
We live in a world that fears suffering, so we’re encouraged to numb our pain with drugs, alcohol and pain-relief in every shape and form. Yet, these avoidance techniques only stunt our spiritual, emotional and physical growth.
Suffering always teaches us something, highlighting a path and showing us where change is inevitable and where we must rise up to meet it. When we stand up against the wave of change, we get knocked down. But when we give in to it, we allow it to carry us where we’re meant to go.
At a point of resistance, suffering dramatically increases, which is why we must let resistance melt away. If we tightly cling to what we know and what feels safe and familiar, we are only creating more pain for ourselves.
For weeks now I’ve felt myself gripping onto the ledge of who I always thought I was, resisting the point of letting go and free falling into who I am becoming. It feels terrifying to allow myself to fall into the void of the unknown and I’ve felt resistance rising within me as I’ve refused to let go.
As well as wishing we could go backwards when times were seemingly simpler, easier and lighter, we also fall into a habit of wishing we could fast-forward to a place of balance and safety, skipping over all the suffering and learning along the way.
We humans are forever wanting to go back to the past or forwards to the future, and very rarely want to stay present, especially when that present feels so uncomfortable and hard.
We all know that the learning process is where the transformation happens and where we practice overcoming our fears and trusting ourselves, but we don’t like it, we only like the known.
The thing is, it’s this time, when we’re struggling and suffering, that is the making of us. No one tells us this, but it is the point of alchemy that changes us completely, if we allow that change to happen.
We can’t go backwards to a past version of ourselves and we can’t race forwards and avoid the hard parts, so how can we lean into the process of change, even when we want to be anywhere but where we are and who we are?
How to stay in the suffering
Suffering is an invitation to change, but when we resist it, wanting to stay safe in a past version of ourselves or fast forward and skip the hard parts of change, we only prolong the process.
If we look back at every point in our life when we’re done something hard and uncomfortable, we’ve always emerged on the other side. Maybe a little bit battered and bruised, but most definitely alive. The same is true of whatever we’re going through now.
Change forces us to rely on our internal strength rather than anything external that we can no longer cling onto. We’re forced to trust ourselves, trust our bodies and trust the unknown because we have no other choice.
It is the toughest lesson and one that we all must learn.
It’s also a time when we have no choice but to seek out hope in the darkness and know that there’s always a light at the end of whatever tunnel we’re tunneling through. There’s always another side and nothing lasts forever.
Our innate nature is one of continuous expansion and we cannot expand if we’re clinging onto the past or trying to skip ahead to the future.
Suffering in this life is inevitable but it’s my belief that we all chose to be here. We chose our life story, we chose our families, we chose earth as our home. Some say that earth is the hardest playground of them all. They also say it’s the place where we feel the greatest depths of emotions.
No wonder life can feel so brutal, it’s meant to be.
So, perhaps, knowing this, we can begin to ease into our present moment, allow ourselves to let go of who we were and allow that grieving process to come in and truly embrace it. Because, whenever we shed a skin of who we once were, we need to grieve before we can move on.
Then, instead of wishing time away and wanting to rush the process of change, we sit back and welcome it in with open arms, knowing that, in the end, it is for our greatest benefit, if only we allow it to be.
After all, alchemy has always been the process of turning metal to the elixir of life. Maybe, this is exactly what’s happening for you too.
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