Life is full of transitions, big and small. We transition all of the time and don’t realise they are happening. Sometimes transitions in our lives might be as simple as going from sitting to standing with such without us realising have an effect on us. How? For example, the flow of blood in the body changes through shifting our position, the amount of effort exerted to be upright changes, and even the breath and heart rate change slightly. Small body transitions change our perception and interaction with the world, so you can imagine that the bigger the transition, the more significant effect on us. And those big transitions aren’t always in the physical realm. They could be and often are in the realm of thoughts and emotions. Relationships change and evolve; comfortable things may need to be swapped out for things that are less comfortable and familiar. The nature of the entire universe is impermanent, and we cause ourselves to suffer by wishing things didn’t change. Noticing our desire for things to remain the same is the first step to acceptance. Once we are aware that this transition is “harder than I expected”, then we can reach into our toolboxes of self-care and decide what is most appropriate to take care of myself as I move through this transition.
When practising mindfulness , we cultivate and strengthen awareness enough to take a step back and not merely react. With mindful awareness , we can insert a gap or a pause between us and what we experience so that we are no longer carried away by our reactive patterns. In that little gap, there exist the freedom to respond in a fresh and less predetermined way.
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