Written by Aaron Fung
Amidst the chaos of being lost, there exists the greatest potential for change.
A fundamental belief I’ve held firmly over the past year is that loss is an integral part of growth—you can’t win without having taken a loss first. You can’t gain new visions without having let old ones go. It’s like Yin and Yang. In one way or another, I believe this perspective is my way to come to terms with what I perceive to have been losses in my life—whether it is an old connection that has run its course, or a flame for something I once held dearly that now feels utterly diminished. To let new energies, new people, and new insights in, you must let go of the old.
One of my lovely colleagues at work had our team start the day with a grounding activity. Each of us was to select a card from the centre of our circle, based on whichever image resonated with us. The cards ranged from images of animals, flowers, and scenery. Upon our selections, we were to flip our cards to reveal an insightful, supposedly personal message. I picked a card with a goofy-looking squirrel, yet the actual message I received struck a chord with me, as it emphasized how healing begins with accepting what we’ve internalized, denied, or disconnected from. It later concludes that we must be okay with where we are before we can progress in our journey.
I love that this was the passage I received. It truly resonates with everything going on in my life as of late, especially my ongoing tension with acceptance. Acceptance is so strange. It’s perhaps the most tumultuous part of growth—the stage where you grieve what you’ve lost, or come to terms with the fact that your current reality looks nothing like what you once envisioned.
“How do I submit to my circumstances?” I wonder, as I attempt to grasp at any successful instance where I seamlessly accepted something that felt impossible to stomach. Well, lately, I’ve found myself forgoing this “loss” narrative I’d been carrying for a while, as it often danced the line between being genuinely productive, and subtly self-victimizing. Instead, I’ve started embracing a new perspective…
Life is change. Totally drawing from ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, here—he famously stated, “The only constant in life is change.” Nothing else is static: not your sense of self, not the qualities you believe define you, not the tendencies you think you’ll always fall back on. The only guarantee is change. Frankly, it’s quite liberating to sit with this—to trust that any situation I find myself in, whether positive or negative, joyful or ruinous, is bound to change. An imminent work in progress.
Moreover, I’ve realized it’s rather pointless to overanalyze or pick apart my past behaviours, patterns, and tendencies, as they too, will change. Life is change. I’m always changing. What I interpret to be a continual vice of mine won’t necessarily stay that way forever. And the phases of life I hold close to my heart—they won’t last forever either. That, too, shall change.