Change: Getting Out of Our Own Way

I don’t need to start this week’s post – about change –dwelling on all the things you already know about the topic. (Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it’s inevitable. Yes, our mindset matters ultimately as we approach it.)

I also don’t need to tell you how very much change our industry is churning through right now, from wineries shuttering or changing hands, to long-time pros suddenly finding themselves without a job and/or a safety net, to major personal life decisions being triggered as a result.

Change can be exhilarating and refreshing. Change can also be hellacious and jarring. We seem to be in a season that is heavy on the latter. As my friend Christian said, it’s easier to manage change when it’s either within ourselves or within the environment. It gets overwhelming when change happens – as it is now – in both of those circumstances at the same time. It’s overwhelming because it’s easy to lose sight of our North Star amidst the clouds and chaos.

This week, I’d like to keep it simple and underscore the most essential thing about change: It is supposed to happen. It is meant to happen. It is already happening, every moment of every day.

It turns out that we are experts in change, naturally, whether we want to be or not. We are primed to handle change, because we’ve been practicing.

That sounds odd, I know. Let me unpack it a bit.

Consider how, and how often, change happens within us. It is relentless. You have changed in the time you’ve spent reading this post. I have changed in the time I’ve spent writing it. Maybe we’ve taken a sip of coffee whose caffeine is changing the flow of adrenaline in our bodies this very moment. Maybe the music just changed in the background to a song that triggered an emotional memory, and our mental state changed from focused to distracted. Maybe a child just came crashing into the room with a scraped knee; your activity changes to “caretaker” and their biology changes to “heal the wound.” Maybe we’ve just gone for a run or a bike ride and our metabolic rate is changing from calorie burn to resting state.

I could go on and on, but here’s the common denominator: Change. Change. Change. And change.

A good bit of change, thanks to nature and evolution, is involuntary. It’s happening without us noticing, but it turns out that we’ve gotten pretty good at it. We’ve HAD to get good at it. So, what if we did notice all of the changes in us and around us every day? What if we noticed how good we are at it? What if we appreciated that our bodies and our brains and our systems have been establishing the patterns of change – and how to react to change – for our whole lives?

Maybe we’d feel bolstered by the truth of this. Maybe we’d feel encouraged that we, that some parts of our bodies and brains, already know how to handle change. Maybe we’d see that “I’m no good at change” just isn’t –cannot be – a true statement. Maybe we’d stop resisting change and the powerful response we already know how to make to it. Maybe we’d get out of our own way, and the way of change.

Maybe we’d trust (trust!) that change knows what it’s doing. It’s been teaching us about itself all along.

This week, maybe take a few minutes to home in on the nuances of change in your day-to-day. Some of it will seem like minutiae, but even minutiae adds up to something solid and trustworthy.

Appreciating the change we already know how to do. That is my wish for you

Namaste,
Cathy