Creating Space for Change
I took a couple of weeks off from writing to prepare our household for large changes and start our new routines. Yes, back to school. This is our first year of full school days, plus, we’re also re-entering daycare. It’s a change for both of our children but also for my husband and I. We went from everyone at home, in one house, for 3 years (except for about 4 months) to both kids out of the house all day. Is this a preview to an empty nest? Kidding. For two years my husband and I both worked from home while our nanny watched our children. We’d see them throughout the day, intervene when needed and hear the constant noise of happiness, frustration and everything in between. It was hard to imagine how this silent workspace would feel. While that was only one chapter of our life, it’s surreal to have it closed. It all started with the pandemic. For a year, like many others, we balanced being home 24/7. Sometimes I think about these last 3 years and feel a sense of sadness that it's over. Crazy, I know, it’s only just changed. I think it’s a feeling of survival and accomplishment. We all made it. Those years, everyone at home, will likely never happen again. While it was harder than hell, it was special.
That’s the thing with change. When we foresee it coming it’s scary as hell. When we’re in it, we’re purely surviving. When we’re through it, we think “Phew, it’s over!” or “Wow, we did it!” or “OK, we’re settled back to a new normal for now.”. Change is one of the hardest things for us humans. Why?
It’s unknown territory and many of us have a fear of the unknown.
It’s often not seen as an opportunity, but instead a challenge.
It creates anxiety.
It requires learning and new ways of doing things.
It pops us out of our routines.
We don’t trust ourselves to make it, so instead we resist and worry.
The changes we’re going through in my household are schedule and environmental changes, but change is hard regardless of what is shifting. A behavior, belief, pattern, exercise, eating, reading, learning, etc. The list goes on into infinity. Coupling change with the anticipation of change - YIKES! Oftentimes, the anticipation of change peaks our worry and/or our unrealistic expectations. When we’re well prepared for something we can often set ourselves up for disappointment because we’re expecting it to go too well. It’s important to create space for mishaps so that your day doesn’t crumble when something goes wrong. For example, when I was preparing for back to school I had the information I needed to know in order to have everything done prior to starting for both kids. Everything looked GREAT on paper headed into day and week one. I wasn’t naive, though, I know we’d be tired and there’d be some regression in behavior and sleep. As those things came up, I held space for my children to express themselves in these ways because I had prepared myself for it.
On the flip side, sometimes we know change is coming but we don't have the details and basic information to prepare ourselves. In these cases, it’s easy to fall into worry, anxiety and worst case scenarios. Our minds love to think – it’s their job. The problem with this is that we have no idea what to worry about. We’re literally making things up and using our energy on something we cannot know. This can also be true for thinking too far ahead into our next life chapters, or our children’s. We’re not there yet, so let’s not project anything toward it.
The space I’m referring to is capacity within ourselves to hold the heavy day-to-day grind, challenges, frustrations and busyness. It’s what I’ve written about many times around self compassion and self care. It’s learning about ourselves, our tendencies and how we show up in these life situations. It’s how we begin to understand ourselves better so that we can tailor our self care and compassion. It’s filling our cup first so we can spill over to others – our families, friends and strangers.
The space is for us to be able to better handle life, but it’s also for the collective because it’s how we show up and treat others.
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