The Blessing of Change

During my morning routine, when I meditate and then write in my journal, I end my writings with a small prayer. The prayer expresses a message (usually to myself) that has bubbled up from the meditation and journaling process. Sometimes, when the lesson is really profound or something that I want to remember, I also write that short prayer on a notecard and place it somewhere prominent, usually in my office where I spend most of my time.

For over a year now, the notecard that has been front and center over my desk has said,

Dear God, thank you for change.

Today, I went back to the original journal entry that inspired that message. It was made on the morning of my oldest son’s twenty-second birthday—the anniversary of the day I became a mother. I was struck by how that one event had been the biggest change in my life, in more ways than I could have imagined at the time.

That morning had led me to celebrate the change, realizing that even though it was scary and brought twists and turns into my life which were not all easy, they had all led me on the path that brought me to my current family, my current life.

In a famous quote often attributed to Gandhi, we are reminded to

Be the change you want to see in the world.

I think when we read this, we usually take it as a call to action. That morning, what I focused on was the word “be”. I meditated on the grounding nature of change and that we must embrace it, embody it. I realized that it starts with us on the inside. I further looked into Gandhi’s teachings and found his actual quote,

We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.

When speaking to others about manifestation or trying to bring new things and experiences into my own life, I am also struck with the paradox that what we are necessarily asking for is change. Yet, change is also something that most of us find fearful.

In order to call the full greatness that is awaiting us into our lives, we must embrace the necessary change that comes with the newness of those things we desire (and do not yet have). We must be the change. We must receive it with willingness and ease. We must show gratitude to it.

Once we begin to accept change as a blessing to be welcomed, we embody it. We feel the excitement of it before it even occurs. Then truly magical shifts can begin to happen in our lives.

Dear God, thank you for change.