Validating the Experience of Change

My Lovelies,

Isabelle here! 😘❤️ Before starting this week’s blog, I want to extend a sincere and heartfelt “Thank You”, on behalf of Athena and I, to all of you who supported us while we were SimplyAthena.blog. We are grateful that you are still here and that you have been joining us through these past few weeks as we slowly transition to our new topics and adventures as PawzandProse.blog. To our new lovelies joining us for the first time, we also extend a warm welcome to you as you join the Pawz and Prose family! We are ecstatic that you have decided to join us!

A quick reminder that with our revamp, we’re working on bringing you on a variety of topics. Personally, I look forward to sharing with you some of my life experiences as well as discussing with you all those experiences we all go through as human beings. I am going to try and focus on those topics that many times we’re too “afraid”, “ashamed”, or even “shy” to discuss. It’s time that we all band together to discuss them and help each other through this windy experience and crazy journey called life. If you’re still not inspired to speak up, no worries, I’m your gal whispers I got you! 😉. I’m willing to use my lungs and voice for all of us! Speaking of windy road… this leads ups to this week’s important topic and that is the uncertainty we all face in life. The word that, for many, causes chills to travel up and down the spine… “change” Shivers.

“OK Isabelle, you’re going to need to explain. What do you mean no one talks about change and/or the uncertainty of life or change? There are a plethora of books, therapists, movies, etc. that talk about this.” I hear you my lovely, and you’re right! There are filmmakers, mental health providers, and authors who are making more of an effort to discuss this important part of life. With their works, they are doing their best to try and help us understand that “the only thing certain about life is change”; however, let’s be completely honest with ourselves… how many times do we speak about it with friend and/or loved ones? How many times when we are trying to discuss our discomfort with change are we told “well, that’s a part of life. You need to accept that nothing is going to be forever, and that change is going to happen”. How many times do these words force us to go through life’s journey “accepting” change whilst suffering in silence? I bet many of you, if not all of you, reading this can relate in one way or another to what I’m saying.

Now, with these external factors programming us to believe that we need to just “grit our teeth and push through these seasons of change” we tend to forget that, just change is a part of the human experience, so is the potential to be uncomfortable with it. You know what no one tells us… that discomfort and resistance is also OK. With the seasons of change comes the need for us to empathize with one another. We need to remember that everybody experiences life differently and that what is simple and easy for one person, let’s say for example moving homes, for someone else might be a situation that has the potential to flip their life upside down. Our automatic reaction is to want others to see situations through our eyes, but we have to remember that that isn’t possible. We also have to remember to be cautious when offering someone support that we are not invalidating their feelings or their experience.

This post is a simple request for all those of you reading it as well as a quick reminder to myself to be gentle and kind to those around us, especially if you know the person is undergoing change. Having gone through so many changes myself in such a small amount of time (i.e., undergoing a job/career change, losing my husband, and facing other personal situations that caused me severe anxiety) I have been reflecting substantially more on this and on the double standard that exists amongst us humans at times with this. I know for me; it was much easier for those around me to support me through my loss than to support me when I was facing uncertainty with my job/career change. I’m not going to compare these two particular situations in terms of difficulty because its blatantly obvious which change hit me harder; nonetheless, that’s not to say that I was not having a difficult time when I was searching for a new workplace to call home. That’s not to say as well that I was not going through the anxiety of getting acquainted with my new workplace.

What I hope this post inspires all of us to do, as aforementioned, is to just be there for each other and be gentle with how we approach daily conversations. It’s a gentle reminder that many a times all we need are not solutions to our situations, as there may not be any, but to know that others are hearing us wholeheartedly while allowing us to get things “off our chest” so to speak. For example, if you know that some is in fact changing jobs, even if you know they are well equipped, that they will be able to find a great position/company, that they will do great, and that they will learn fast, don’t disregard their anxiety during the process. Perhaps instead of saying “you’re going to do great” or “don’t worry about it, you’ll learn” or “everything is going to be fine” say something along the lines of “I hear you and I understand how this process can be scary. What do you need from me? How can I help?” It’s that undermining reply and that feeling it gives us of “no one is going to understand us because change is normal” that keeps so many of us silenced during life’s journey. We have to understand that we human beings were created to be social and were not meant to ride this crazy ride called life alone. A little empathy can make the entire difference in someone’s experience.

Also, I feel the need to end this post by saying that, even if you don’t know someone’s journey still be kind. We have established during this short time together that change is inevitable; thus, that means that there is a HUGE likelihood that the person you’re engaging with in your day-to-day life is undergoing it at this very moment. Perhaps this post is cliché, but I know that many of us are undergoing or have undergone change and have pushed through it because we believe the experience so “mundane” and “small” to others that we have no other choice but to go about it without help. Maybe, if we all worked together and understood this important part of the human experience and condition, we wouldn’t have to… no matter what that process of change entailed. Something to meditate on my lovelies…for all of us.

XOXO Isabelle 😘❤️ XOXO