Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

~Lao Tzu

With the pandemic, people of all ages felt uncertain about what was and struggled to figure out what would be.

Our life purpose shifted.

Yet, we don’t need a pandemic to feel uncertain about our lives. Life is an ongoing process of switching from one state to another, which never ceases. We finish school, get in or out of relationships, have children, move, change jobs, or a life-altering circumstance suddenly happens. These significant events can be stressful.

Nevertheless, we can realign to the shifts when we acknowledge that everything is in continual motion. Doing so allows us to welcome change with an open attitude. Once we understand this, transformation within happens. We become less reactive and more at peace.

However, if we deny perpetual movement exists, when change happens, we are stunned, feeling the rug has been yanked from under our feet. Therefore, once we learn to adapt to the small changes in everyday life, the big things become easier to maneuver.

Regardless, we may resist change because we have worked endlessly to create a sense of stability and routine in our lives and daily activities. This inability to flow can be our worst enemy.

How to Manage Change: Going with the Flow

No one could have predicted how the twists and turns of the past few years have impacted us. Yet, how we navigate the new road is up to us.

It’s OK to be uncertain; certainty will come when we accept that life moves on its trajectory. No one way fits all, with one exception, going with the flow. The flow may change, sometimes going in the direction we are looking towards, or it may veer away into one we never imagined. Either way, it is consistent in doing what it does; flow.

Opposing the flow and allowing fear to enter doesn’t contribute to a solution; it only drains our adrenals and weakens our immune system, so guarding against that is essential. Resistance comes in many forms; worry, fear, and denial are common.

Buddism offers ways to transform troubling thoughts and emotions when they arise. One suggestion is a practice called changing the peg. Just as a carpenter will replace a rotten or broken peg by first removing it and then hammering in a new one, we replace thoughts that no longer serve us.

The key is to replace the high anxiety, damaging or disquieting thoughts with those of high value and vibration.

An example could be when anxious thoughts creep into our days. To replace those anxieties with deep problem-solving will do nothing to alleviate the troubling one, but replacing it with a passion or a memory of something that brings immense joy, will. The mind will tap into the new thought’s energy, the new peg, allowing the unnecessary worry to go.

Like life, the water in a stream does not judge what is in its way; it simply flows over and around it. We can be like the stones moving as the water propels or become a boulder, finding our place in the stream, burrowing into the mud, or wedging between other rocks and allowing the water to flow around us. One day the stream may shift because rocks upstream have altered the path. We may remain steadfast in our position as the boulder even though the stream has changed. The water, like life, continues always.

Once we learn to go with the flow, even if it is seemingly antithetical to where we think we want to go, it will take us to exactly where we need to be. Even when we resist or ignore it, we land where we must. To grow into who we are meant to be happens at the rate we allow it to. The resistance only allows the process to sink in at the rate we can absorb.

How to repurpose life’s mission is varied. During indecision, explore the things you have always dreamt of doing. Reprocessing the ideas of how we once daydreamed of where we thought life was taking us can bring us back to the core of who we are. Look where you have landed and then search for what new expression of soul you want to explore. Where you would like to arrive will present opportunities to get there.

In the meantime, remember to change the peg when those pesky thoughts overwhelm us. We only need the desire to get into the flow: repurpose, and redesign what was. Changing how we see will alter our lives to become who we are meant to be.

Today is the tomorrow you were worried about yesterday. ~Dale Carnegie