If you’ve been keeping up with my posts, you know it’s been an exciting time around here lately. I’m going through some really amazing changes that I’m open to with my whole heart, even though I’m secretly freaking out a little bit. I recently got engaged and just moved into a dream house with my love–we’re working diligently on turning the house into a home, and it’s a lot of fun + scary all at the same time.
As I’m going through all of these highs, I’m still feeling the waves of everyday life. Two days after getting engaged, I broke my toe. What bad timing! And a few days later as I was enjoying the amazing sunny weather during my lunch hour, I locked my keys in my car. Talk about learning to ride the waves of life.
Even though these minor events sprinkled some frustrations around my joy, it was a good reminder to me that life is a mix of highs and lows; it is always changing and moving. I think it’s natural to want to lock things down and set cruise control on the “happy” setting each day, but there’s more in store for us than that one-dimensional life.
And the neutrality that comes with no emotional fluctuations only ends up stifling the spirit. Wanting happiness 24/7 is just a result of trying to avoid any sort of pain or discomfort–but experiencing happiness all the time would burn us out in a different way.
Because even though we crave happiness most of the time, feeling the highs and lows give us perspective to appreciate the varying degrees of life; they create depth of character. How would we know pure bliss unless we’ve experienced a deep low? Without the peaks and valleys, we lose perspective and soon feel trapped in that tightly cocooned safety net. We are meant to change and grow, not stay stagnant.
As I reflected on the the events of the good-and-not-so-good events happening at the same time, I realized it’s part of the beauty of life–the balance of the yin and yang. I try to remind myself of this natural law as I go through the roller coaster of emotions that change can often bring. I know that eventually, things settle.
It reminds me that life is meant to be lived and enjoyed, and messily so. We have to ride the waves of joy + sorrow and grow from it, in order to become the person we want to be. That includes screwing up, feeling bad and bouncing back, too. Without that, we lead a life of emotional mediocrity and stifled curiosity. Our spirit blooms when we feel the full range of emotions because we gain confidence as we get to know ourselves better.
Riding the waves of life with courage allows us to expand into something we may not have imagined–but always wanted to be. The trick is getting beyond the fear long enough to embrace the changes as a good thing. Because they usually are.
