The thing you are doing right now is changing you

The thing you are doing right now is changing you. The way you are listening to your friend is changing you and changing them. The way you are sharing your food or home or time is acting upon you in multiple ways. We can’t help but change; we are change; change is our birthright. 

My heart threatens to swing shut a thousand times a day. Sometimes it’s out of envy, often out of fear, many times from confusion, and almost always out of patterns and conditioning. It feels like I’m an unwilling gatekeeper to my heart; a job that I have no interest in, but that I’ve been doing ever since I can remember. Is this a moment where I can open? Is this a moment when I need to close, hide, protect, and retreat? Am I safe? Am I at risk? So many things feel threatening or that they put me at risk in some way. I don’t want to gatekeep my heart, just like I don’t want to feel threatened or afraid for so many of my sweet moments on earth. 

What’s really at risk? Is there anything at risk? 

There’s this sense that us humans, particularly adults, are clumsy and resistant to change. We witness our hearts contracting with age, but it’s seen as normal, as part of life, as something that we can’t change. We witness the ways that we hurt ourselves and others, and this too is seen as normal and resistant to our effort. I have always recoiled when I hear people say that we get more conservative with age or that after a certain age or part of someone’s life, then they are a done, closed case. Like we are something that can set, like jello. Ah, my heart is more closed as an adult; that’s the way it is, we say to ourselves. Ah, that’s just the way she is. 

Listen: 

I think we bend towards the sun just like plants do in the morning. I think we bend towards the whole, the nourishing. Our hearts open. We change, we grow, even when we don’t intentionally set out to do so. We change even if we don’t take note of it. In every moment, we are learning and moving towards more wholeness. 

And I believe that our growth is usually in the direction of freedom and compassion. Of wholeness. We creep, like ivy, towards fullness. We can trust in that; we can trust in our movement towards wholeness. 

My intention on earth is not to protect myself and my kind. 

In organizing, we talk a lot about theories of change. They can be helpful for an organization or collective to have because they provide the longer-view or vision of how the group or individuals believe that change happens. My theory of change is heavily influenced by adrienne maree brown’s book “Emergent Strategy” and her idea of the fractal. This has been recently more clarified through experiences with 1-on-1 agitational conversations. It seems to me that change happens through conversations/interactions with other people. Any movement, whether it be the Stop Line 3 movement or Black Lives Matter, seems to me to be an incredibly complex aggregation of relationships that is held by a network of millions of conversations. These relationships and conversations are simple, but lead to nation-wide action and change which can feel epic, momentous, and the result of something huge. The results ARE huge, but the whole thing is composed of tiny, ordinary, simple, everyday things, like two friends going on a walk and talking about something problematic at work, or a small group of friends deciding to cover the costs of a beloved friend who has had an accident. These everyday interactions and relationships act on us; we are changed through our conversations and the way that we relate with one another. Without them, our social change movements are hollow; the strength of any movement depends just as much on your weekly walk with a comrade as it does on any expensive media or extensive fundraising campaign. 

There’s not the one glittery, epic thing to do, whether in our own personal lives as we strive towards change, or in our social change movements. The thing to do is to relax into our conversations and listen to each other, holding tight the trust that the seeds are already unfolding and opening within us. If you have the intention, like most of us do, of being more loving and compassionate, your next conversation is actually what matters, not some special project. And it’s not as if any special effort needs to be exerted; you just need to be there and allow yourself to be the raw nature that you are. You will change through your interaction regardless. Our relationships with each other are enzymes for growth. 

And I don't think we need to perfectly understand or track the ways that we are changing either. I think it can be helpful and delicious to take note of this change and growth and have recently had the beautiful experience of reflecting over a weekend spent with friends and how it acted upon me. It was lovely to think about how the simple acts of cooking and cleaning together brought me closer to a sense of open-heartedness and gratitude and that listening to my friend talk about reciprocity as it relates to giving/taking from the land she lives on has activated something deep within me that was waiting. However, I don’t think it’s necessary; I think that our intentions live within us even if not consciously understood and that the world will act on us and that we will grow as a result regardless. Reflection is a rich practice, but I find it heartening to believe that the change isn’t waiting to be integrated or understood, but is actually just happening in the very moment. We will open because we need to, because our interactions will guide us in that direction, not because we follow any excellent habits or adhere to any specific framework for spiritual growth. We change through everything and we don’t have to wait for it; once a rock hits the water, the ripples start immediately. We hold wisdom deeper than anything we can consciously think, understand, or analyze. 

And this all brings into stark relief the incredible holiness of our daily lives. How it really matters how present we are for ourselves and others, more than anything else. How it really matters that we pay attention to our lives rather than wait for the one big thing to happen to us that’ll change everything. Everything and everyone changes us just as we change and affect everyone and everything that we come into contact with; there’s no waiting involved. It’s just now. We already have everything we need. 

Photo by Sugar Bee on Unsplash