"Often we give up our right to renewal to accommodate the anxiety of those around us." Mark Nepo
How very true. When we change -- and change we must -- for our overall health, it causes anxiety for those close to us, because we are "showing up" different in the relationship, which is unsettling. At the point of noticing the discomfort in others, we have two choices: Stay the same to accommodate the other person's anxiety; or - Have the courage to change and grow in the ways we are being shown. We can take a lesson from the snake in this regard: when the old skin becomes too tight, it is shed -- trusting that a new, better-fitting one will develop to take the place of the old. What might need to be shed by us? Old ideas, suffocating ways of thinking, ways of relating that no longer serve us, the image of ourselves that no longer holds true, beliefs that no longer support us. There are many ways in which we humans are called to shed what is old and step out in trust to build what is new for us. Sometimes this is called forth by painful circumstances in the outer world. In those cases, we are being changed from within and without -- if we have the courage to actually experience the painful circumstance. In what ways are you being called upon to change?
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