Accepting Change

By Joana Gockel

Can you accept change?

I could not accept change and I hid it so well. It became clear to me after reflecting on my life and observing my mind and its patterns. Let me tell you more about this. I liked the way things were in my childhood, my blue carpet, my little bed, the toys I had. My sister next door, my parents on the same floor. It was so peaceful and I liked living like that.

Then there was the renovation. I was getting older and my blue carpet was going to go and make way for parquet flooring. I was really unhappy about it, I didn’t want my blue carpet to go. My family used to joke and laugh about it. I felt embarrassed because the change had just happened and the parquet floor was nice. But it was a strange feeling for me, as if something inside me had died. Something seemed lost; as if time was telling me that the happy days of childhood, a time without worries could not last.

My teenage years began and I became more self-conscious and uncomfortable in my own skin. I didn’t want to accept the changes that were inevitable with growing up, so I locked up the good memories of when the blue carpet was still there, and lived on, burdened with the expectations I had of myself as I grew older. I didn’t know what was wrong, but somehow, I wasn’t happy anymore. Maybe I was too attached to the blue carpet and my carefree days of childhood. You can analyze and interpret it in many ways, but in the end the only thing that matters to me now is that I could see how my life and feelings were controlled by living in hidden memories.  

To get out of my feelings of sadness I started a practice of meditation, I learned how to let go of my attachment to those memories and gain the freedom to live now. I couldn’t accept change but now I could let go of that part of me and unlock my true potential, no longer afraid of change.

It was only through meditation that I was able to unravel my past, find the hidden causes of pain in me and release them. The meditation practice I do is about letting go of the many pictures we hold in our mind. From these pictures we construct our own view, ideas and feelings about the world but this is not the real world only our self-created mind world. Living in this body, we create our own view of the world, limiting our consciousness to our experiences. But it’s not enough just to know that we’ve made copies of the world in our minds. We have to do the work to come out of that unreal world.

I searched for an answer because I had been unhappy in my life. Going through many different changes and becoming more and more numb to my surroundings. I lived abroad in two different countries for three different periods of time and moved around 11 times. I was looking for some kind of enlightenment. 

I didn’t know what else could help me when I was so depressed and confused. Fortunately, after many different approaches to meditation, I found the one meditation that allowed me to unravel all the unresolved things I was carrying inside. I had been hiding them from myself, trying to protect myself from falling apart. I couldn’t really accept myself as I was. I just wanted to go back to that old blue carpeted room in my childhood that didn’t exist.  I was so desperate and lost. But I didn’t even know it. In meditation, I found this out as I pulled up these old pictures and let go of them. Letting go of all the experiences that I had copied into my mental world. 

Step by step I was able to discover and release them and the hold they had on me. I was able to let go of my unhappiness, depression and confusion by releasing this self-made copy of the world that I was carrying around with me. Now I feel relieved. So much pain has dissolved. With a consciousness free of these attachments that produced all the fear and sadness. I have learned to accept change and whatever life brings. The blue carpet is gone, even from my mind. Now I see that I can only accept the changes and adapt to them. I can let go of myself who is not willing to change. I can be like nature and flow with the world. Thank you for this wonderful meditation. Thank you for teaching me every day how to become a little more peaceful and free from within. All the answers are within, we just have to have a method to find them and allow ourselves some time to find peace and our true potential.