As we are rounding the bend of the last few years, our attention has been shifting. Perhaps, you’ve noticed yourself reflecting on the last few years. As a society, what we upheld as our identities have been challenged — perhaps personally too. I witnessed many a pandemic breakup— as I called it, career transformation, or moves across the country.
There was an opportunity to re-examined what was most important in our lives, explore expressions of ourselves, find new boundaries, step into something new, and end the old. One gift of the pandemic is that it left us sitting with ourselves. There was literally nowhere to run, so we were all faced with the thing can find so many ways to avoid — ourselves.
Lately, we’ve been the witness to a “light at the end of the tunnel” so to speak. Instead of being under a microscope of what is being destroyed or who/what are we loosing, we are starting to look at building, creating, and welcoming something new. Take a look around. Things have really changed. Some wonderful new things have come quickly into the world too.
This newness may feel strange, fertile, unknown. You may simply feel it in your bones. Something is different. In a way, you may sense the energy of newness. Perhaps, you wake up and look in the mirror and see something new in yourself. You may look around at your life and how different it was from a few years ago. Is it even real yet? You may be dreaming new dreams and crossing old thresholds. Perhaps, you are dreaming up a big trip across the world, a relationship, or a new exciting career.
What if it is so strange and new that you don’t have words to express it. There may not be words yet for the newness that is you being unveiled.
As we have come around the bend of the last few yeas, something is becoming more apparent than ever. There is always something new to have and experience, even in the darkest of times. In the face of death, we consider our lives. In the face of things ending, we consider our future. That is a gift unto its self.
For some people, their journey was very clear. They may have been dreaming something new up for years, embarked on a great adventure, changed careers, changed their relationship to health, or stepped away from something old. All this, as the world as they knew it, broke open to something new.
For others, their world changed abruptly, and what was known was no longer. Change arose in their lives suddenly and completely. An uncontrollable surrender of dreams, making way for the unexpected new world coming.
As our old and familiar lives have fallen away, our new dreams are what create our future. For your dreams to become your reality, growth and change are a part of the process.
The last few years have shaken things up in a way of almost no return. It feels like there is only forward movement, as no one wants to go back into the heart of the pandemic. With this tide of newness, you could be a salmon swimming upstream, or you could ride the waves. Change is a choice. Your new dreams are a choice.
Ride the wave.