The Cosmopolitan Blog

The first of many introspective posts…

Change. Change happens all the time. Sometimes change is good, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes change happens “to us”, sometimes we instigate change. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about life goals, asking myself tough questions about priorities and desires, and this has brought about a lot of change: good change that i have control over. These are all changes that I know will bring about a major change for the better, and improve my life and those around me.

So, with this kind of change, we should be so eager to bring it about and never want to look back. But do we always do that? Jump in, both feet together, wholeheartedly? Or do we, instead, keep looking back, feeling twangs of guilt and bittersweet-ness? I know I do. And then i wonder why i feel that way, and then i procrastinate bringing on the change because it doesn’t feel 100% right… and then it never gets done.

But after a recent aha! moment, embracing change has become increasingly easier for me. I have to remember, and acknowledge, that for every change or “move forward”, there is something I’m leaving behind. Whether it’s a new job that I’m so excited to accept or a new hairstyle that i KNOW will be flattering, or even a new way of looking at life that I know will make things way easier. For every one of those things, I have to give up the old way of doing it: the old job, the old hairstyle, the old instinctual way of thinking.

This means that there is an element of mourning. I have to mourn the old way. And before that, I have to identify what it is about the old way that i’m gonna mourn. Is it the old colleagues I’m gonna miss? Is it way the light reflected on my hair with the old color? Is it the fact that the old way of thinking required less effort than this new better way?

I’ve found that if i acknowledge the mourning, bring it to the forefront of my mind, instead of letting it be an unacknowledged dark entity in the back of my mind, if i consciously take time to reflect on it, then it stops becoming this debilitating beast that stops me from progressing, but rather, it suddenly becomes a valuable nod to my past, something i smile at with nostalgia, a mark that will remind me later of how far I’ve come.

So here’s my advice: if you’ve ever felt like you don’t have the motivation to bring on the change you know you need to, acknowledge what you’re leaving behind and know that it’s ok to grieve for it. We are amazing beings that are able to mourn for “what once was” while at the same time being able to handle every new change and hurdle with open arms.