"The Only Lasting Truth": On Learning & Change
As both a virgo and someone who’s experienced trauma - I have found myself, more often than not, staunchly opposed to change. Change often means a level of uncertainty. Uncertainty, as it relates to trauma and opporession can be unsafe, scary, activating, triggering, and/or ungrounding. (Uncertainty, as it relates to being a virgo, means not having all the answers and I haaaaaate…).
After my Saturn’s return nearly a decade ago - I truly thought my life would be free from change. At least until my next Saturn’s return. My life turned upside down and I thought, “well, that was hard AF - but look at me! I did that and I’m done now. I don’t ever have to worry about that again. It’s smooth sailing from here on out!” Imagine my surprise to learn that, to quote the great Octavia Butler, “the only lasting truth is change.”
“All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change.”
One of the next times my understanding of change (and grief) expanded was when I separated from my then-spouse in 2019. It was the first time in my life I remember actively working to show my grief. I needed to be witnessed, to be seen. Grief was an experience that had previously felt shameful or something that was only supposed to be experienced by myself, alone in my room. I think of how many of us have been taught to experience grief alone. (We can certainly grieve solo - and, for some of us, that may be how we need to.) And I think of how grieving alone can feel so isolating. Which, in turn, creates the potential for our bodies to encode that sort of silence as shame, and that shame as trauma. (Which, is not to mean this trauma is our fault. The ways we’re taught to and are “allowed” to experience grief and transition are not just personal, they are systemic and cultural.)
For months after my separation, I would pull an affirmation card (literally the same card for *months*) that read something like, “I allow destruction to make way for creation.” And for months, I *hated* that card. How dare it suggest that something, anything could come from my pain? I didn’t see a possibility beyond what was hurting and raw in those moments. I didn’t actually NEED to see anything beyond what was hurting and raw. All I needed then was to tend to that hurt. With time and care and witnessing from my loved ones and myself, I began to understand that something new was indeed brewing. That I was growing, shifting, changing, becoming.
That change is the constant. All those years ago, I had thought it was the exception. With a sometimes begrudging acceptance, I’ve come to understand change as not something I can avoid. (It’s certainly not something I can plan for or around). It is even something I can embrace. I began to see the ways change could mean possibility. To understand that change is not just something bad that happens “to” - that I am also capable of creating change in my life (and have been, even if I didn’t recognize it as such). That change can be liberating and joyful and full of hope.
It was through many twists and turns (ones I saw coming and many I didn’t) like my Saturn’s return, loved ones lost, divorce - that I found myself here. A student of, and with, change. Learning to be comfortable with the break down and the “being” in the chrysalis experience. Learning to be more curious than resistant. Learning to tend to the sometimes unrelenting grief. Learning the beauty and joy of change. Learning to see my own power, our collective power.
“Change is the constant. All those years ago, I thought it was the exception.”
This is, in part, why I gravitate towards Portal Doula & Postpartum work. I understand at least some of what it means to exist in liminal spaces. What it means to choose change, and also the pain of not having a choice (or having choice taken). How important it is for joy and grief and growth to be seen, witnessed, felt. How necessary it is to take care and tend to ourselves (and be cared for and tended to) while navigating transformative experiences.
As I find myself amid new portals, including a move to the PNW, I am sitting with the wonderment - and amused bewilderment - that I still think of change as being the absence of ease. Even though I know choosing change can be liberating (and also a privilege) I had more to learn. Or unlearn. Or relearn.
And so, I continue learning. Learning to find ease in asking for help or in choosing change. Learning that sometimes change means leaning into tension or resistance, and sometimes it means leaning away from it. Learning that I don’t need to have all the answers - and I do need to come back to myself, my loved ones, the tools of taking care that I have access to. Learning the difference between discomfort and being unsafe (BIG thanks to my therapist for helping me clarify that distinction).
I hope I will continue learning. I hope we all will. I hope we know that we are learning. And don’t judge ourselves too harshly for it. Much like healing, like grief - there is no one way to navigate change. As we move through personal changes and collective ones - I hope we are able to come back to the places that feel like steady ground (or, neutral ground) - places like our bodies, our curiosity, our communities. These spaces will help us find the way ahead. Help us to come out of these chrysalis experiences renewed. Help us to build the loving and just worlds we dream of.
Poco a poco, breath by breath - we are, we will.
xo - Michelle