Such a lot has happened since my last post. We have had a wee holiday, run another Linne Bheag Saturday, and run around the country spending time with people. Sometimes it was work and sometimes relaxation. But since we both seem to work with such nice people it is always – well, almost always! – a real pleasure.
We had a great day last Saturday leading a day on “The Changing Seasons of Life”. We were to have had a ‘full house’ but unfortunately a few people had to cancel at the last minute so there were only nine of us in all.
Although almost none of us knew each other beforehand, we found kindred spirits and realised we were all facing or had faced quite disruptive transitions in our lives. I loved preparing for that day. I knew a lot about transition and change. Don’t we all?! But the discipline of getting it down on paper ready to share it with others was energising as I began to piece together certain transitions of my own and see them in a wider context.
The big lesson for us all on that day was that,
Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realise that tomorrow’s joy is possible only if today’s makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the receding one. (Andre Gide)
And, let’s face it, we would never willingly allow today’s joys to pass if we weren’t forced into it. Change forces us into transition and transition leads us into some kind of transformation. We grow up. We grow strong. We grow into ourselves. We grow into completeness in God. We become happy. But we can’t become happy (or any of these other things) without letting go of part of today and yesterday. We grow into tomorrow.
Walking around the harbour at lunchtime helped. I just love living here. Five minutes watching the waves pounding on to the shore is worth more than five hefty tombs of the best literature you can find. (Unless you are a FIVE on the Enneagram, of course!)
I leave you with another quote. This time from Carl Jung of whom I am a devotee.
He believed that some people didn’t allow the changes of life to lead them into transition and therefore never actually progressed much on their life journey. If this happened, he says, they become,
“…….hypochondriacs, niggards, doctrinaires, applauders of the past or eternal adolescents – all lamentable substitutes for the illumination of self.”
So beware, all those who cling on to the sinking ship in the hope that they can return to yesterday! The only way is forward >>>>>>>>>>>>> !
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