Change is constant

Photo credit: lululemon athletica/ Flickr Creative Commons

I was waiting for a bus the other day after a teacher training workshop when a woman came out of a nearby tattoo parlor. As she walked by me, I caught a glimpse of her brand new tattoo: change is constant. This isn't a new concept to me - I've written about impermanence here before, for example (follow the tag on this post) - but for whatever reason, I received the message in a new way. It was as though there were a footnote on her tattoo that said: and that means you, too.

Change is constant and that means you, too. Sometimes I have this crazy fear that I can't change, that I'll always be fighting the same battles and making the same mistakes, that I'll always be stuck in the same patterns of being. In fact, change is inevitable, and that means me, too. Everything changes. And that conviction that we're in some way an exception, that our identity is somehow permanent and unchanging? Well, what are the chances of that?

This is pretty liberating and empowering - because change may be imperceptibly slow sometimes, but it is constant. On a cellular level, we're changing all the time as new cells die and are replaced; we don't usually notice those changes happening, but they are. Perhaps in a similar way, elements of old mental/ emotional patterns die and are replaced regularly, and although we can't see the changes taking place most of the time, we aren't stuck: we have an incredible capacity for transformation. This is our birthright. It is constant and inevitable. It's important, therefore, to work for positive change - because change will happen regardless. Look within and make those changes count! Namaste.