Happiness Is a Healthy Relationship With Change

Learn more about the ‘Mindfulness-Based Resilience & Flourishing’ programme

Click the image below

What’s your relationship with change?

If I was to ask you the question, what's your relationship like with change? I wonder what your most reflective and honest answer would be.

I know, it's a really deep and rhetorical question, no need to answer it now.

But one of the healthiest things we can do for ourselves in service of our happiness and that sense of inner balance is to ask the question and to really get to know our most truthful response to it.

If you are thinking about it, there's a good chance that an answer that pops up is "Well, it depends."

No surprises, we seem to be pretty good at dealing with change when it's change that we like and that we wanted. But so often, we tend to struggle when things change and we don't want them to change.

I know, not rocket science, is it?

Mindful of the flow of change

When we allow ourselves an opportunity to explore that question a bit deeper, we start to see that change, and our relationship to it, sits at the heart of every single moment we get to experience.

Because everything is changing all the time. Everything. Things outside in the world, things inside our bodies and in our minds.

It's all moving parts. And it's in a constant state of flux.

Sometimes this can be quite an enjoyable process to be a part of. But all too often, it can be a real problem for our human minds that have evolved to become very attached to the way things are.

And that become very identified with the way they think things should be.

And we try to unconsciously hold things in place when the truth is, we just can't.

Accepting change

A great example of this is my little boy. He's a lovely age right now and if I was to pin my satisfaction on him staying like that (there's a part of me that wishes he would), there's only one way that's gonna go.

There's no way that tomorrow he can be the same configuration of a little boy that he is today.

So, a big part of my job as a dad is to accept him for however he shows up and to do my best to try to enjoy all of his transitions.

What the Buddha said about change & impermanence 

You may already know that the work that I do as a mindfulness teacher is heavily inspired by Buddhist truth bombs. And in my humble opinion, the most profound truth bomb the Buddha ever gave was delivered in one line when he said...

“Whatever has the nature to arise will also pass away.”

Now that sounds really simple, doesn't it?

But if we think about that for a second, whatever has the nature to arise will also pass away.

What does that include?

Pretty much everything.

We live in a world that is governed by this non-negotiable law of impermanence.

If you ever want to keep yourself awake at night, you might want to try thinking of anything to which that doesn't apply.

Happiness & change

What this really means is that the quality of our happiness over the long term is highly correlated to the quality of our relationship with change.

In order for us to experience more of that genuine and authentic kind of inner happiness, and that sense of inner balance and peace of mind while we're going through all the trials and tribulations of our lives, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to learn how to hold change a bit more fluidly and a bit more lightly.

Of course, it's easier said than done, and it really is a practice.

If it's something that you feel that you would really like some help and guidance with, to practice this, then get in touch.