Embracing Change After a Crisis

I think it’s fair to say the whole world is in crisis at the moment. I often hear people talking about things ‘getting back to normal’ and until recently I was one of those people. The ‘Normal’ of life before this crisis was my light at the end of the tunnel.

Until someone mentioned that dreaded C word.

Change.

It was during a Zoom meeting with a small group of friends when the topic came up about the world never being the same again. That comment stopped me dead in my tracks as I felt that familiar knot of fear in my gut.

What?

Not the same?

Why?

I need it to be the same. What else is there to look forward to?

Over the next day or so I pondered this revelation, along with my reaction to it. Why was I suddenly afraid?

For the most part, I don’t mind change. In fact, I embrace it. Life would be boring otherwise. But this is different. We’re already going through so much change on a daily basis. My good friend said last night that she’s sure the past week had 20 days in it. And I get where she’s coming from. No sooner do we get used to a new normal than another new normal is thrust upon us.

It literally is like playing in the waves at my favourite beach. Well hubby calls it playing, he enjoys catching a wave on his boogie board, shouting with delight all the way back into the beach, and of course there’s always a smooth glide at the end. For him. It’s a bit different for me. Boogie boarding isn’t playing, it’s survival. Hanging on for dear life as the wave carries me in. Just as I think I’m getting the hang of it, another wave appears out of the blue and I’m dumped. I manage to scramble to my feet, catch a breath of air and if I’m lucky, I may even have time to check that my boobs are still in my bathers then BAM, another one. And so the cycle continues.

Which is why I rarely swim at my favourite beach. I watch.

But this is different. I don’t have the luxury of watching from a safe point. I’m in it, along with everyone else. And just when I think I’ve got this, I’ve found my New Normal, BAM another wave of change hits and I have to start again to negotiate a new, New Normal.

And the one thing that has kept me going is looking forward to going back to my Old Normal. I like my Old Normal. It’s safe, predictable. I had a lot more control in that life.

So to be told that life would be different after this, and worse, we don’t know what that Different is going to look like… well I don’t know about you but that doesn’t really inspire me to look forward.

Crisis

The word Crisis has it’s origin in the Greek word Krinein which means to decide. The derivative Krisis was used by Galen in the second century to denote a turning point of a disease. Crisis is the Latin version of Krisis and was later used in the same vein, but another meaning was added vitally important or decisive state of things, point at which change must come, for better or worse.

Change must come, for better or worse

This is our turning point, we can never go back to life as it was before. For better or worse, each of us gets to decide.

There are many things we have no control over. Not just the virus itself, but the financial and relational fallout, the shattered dreams and plans, the death of loved ones. The losses we sustain during this time threaten to devastate us.

But change must come and though we may have no control over many aspects of that, we can control whether that change is going to affect us for the better or for the worse.

Because here’s the thing, I don’t believe it’s a matter of OR, it’s a matter of AND. Life will be both better and worse. However, just like the old Cherokee parable of The Two Wolves, the one you feed wins.

And this starts with Acceptance. Just like the prayer, the Acceptance to know which things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can and the wisdom to know the difference. 

Acceptance takes Courage. Courage comes from making a Decision. Krinein. 

My original response to the idea that life after this would change was one of fear. And that’s OK, that’s normal. After all, my old life was predictable and that feels warm and comfortable to think about. Of course I would strive to retain what I had.

Many of us are having conversations with our young children to try and explain why they can’t go to school or visit their friends. I had to have that same conversation with the little girl who lives inside of me. There was no way I was going to move forward until I could get her on board. Once I was able to convince her to accept the inevitable, I could take hold of Courage.

Courage comes when you feel the Fear and do it anyway. It’s a decision. I decided that if life had to change, I was going to have some control over that. In other words, I don’t want Change to happen to me and the way I do life, I want to Change me and the way I do life.

Courage helps me to find Opportunity.

My light at the end of the tunnel used to be getting back to my old life, picking up where we left off. Now my light at the end of the tunnel is dreaming of the things I will do differently. But first, I have to get through the tunnel and tunnels scare me. When I was in year 10 we went on a trek for PE and had to go through the old train tunnel in Swan View. Over 260 metres of pitch black. No thank you. I would rather climb up the ant infested banks of the cliff face, hanging onto young saplings to help me reach the top and climb down again at the other side, than go through that tunnel. Which is exactly what I did (obviously very poor teacher supervision back then).

But I can’t climb over this tunnel, I’m in it.

Opportunity is my lamp that will guide me to the other side. The opportunity to use this time to think about what is really important. To peel back the layers of life, right down to the core, throwing out the bits that are not important or no longer needed and reconstructing using only the best bits. The things that really matter.

One of my biggest fears is that I will look back at my life from my death bed and have regrets over the things I didn’t do. So I’m using this opportunity to look at what I might regret if I don’t get to do it.

And I discovered something quite beautiful.

I discovered that most of the things I would regret not doing are things that release my inner child. She doesn’t get out much these days, but sometimes she gets out regardless. You’ll see her in my bright red hair. She got out much more on our trip, she was dancing and singing along with the buskers in France and Italy, she was seen in the ruins of Pompeii singing… Pompeii 🙂 she was seen in Galway singing in the streets and showing the ’20 somethings’ how to do the Tarantella to traditional Irish music, and on the Isle of Skye conducting an experiment on how many adults could fit into a red phone booth, with the door closed.

And something tells me that you’re going to be seeing a lot more of her in my New Normal, after all this is over. Because while I’ve still got a bit of peeling away and reconstructing to do, I’ve already identified that one of the things I don’t want to bring with me is the fear of others’ opinions of me.

One thing that will never change though is my bright red hair. I’m taking that to the grave 🙂