It’s okay when things change

The sea retreats then surges, retreats then surges, on repeat.

Spring eases into Summer eases into Autumn eases into Winter eases into Spring…

Summer isn’t full of just sunny days, it can rain, the wind can howl, the storms can come.

All around us in nature are examples of patterns, cycles, rhythms, passing throughs, ebbs and flows, the expected and the unexpected.

Nothing is clear cut.

Just as our experience of life never is.

When we consider our expectations versus reality we might be sad about the uncertainty of it all. We like predictability, certainty, trajectories.

And then life happens and it’s more like a knotted amble than a lovely straight drawn-with-a-ruler-diagonal-line.

We can be experiencing a season of having sprung from a dark winter and still experience momentary darkness.

We can be experiencing a season of light and laughter and still experience not-so-happy moments.

We might be easing in to a season that’s slower and can still feel energised at times.

We can find ourselves plonked in the middle of a chilly Winter and still experience warmth and comfort.

We’ll have ups and downs, that’s a given. But within those ups and downs will be ups and downs and lefts and rights too. We might be feeling down and find something funny. We might be feeling up and find something sad. We might be headed in one life-direction to find that we need to take a detour.

Wherever you are right now,  knowing that some seasons are tougher than others, please know that it all passes and that it’s normal for things to not be so consistent, so planned, so reliably linear. Nothing in nature is, and you’re nature. You’ll surge and retreat, you’ll ebb and flow, you’ll have rhythms and patterns and cycles all of your own. And you’ll get through them all because that’s what you have done up until this point and can and will again.

Expect the best but have planned for the worst so that when the emotional bumps, scrapes, lows and downs hit, you have plans and tools in place to help you through – should you need them. Self-care toolkits, support systems and networks to tap into, tools to help you to tap into your senses as needed, the framework in place so that you know what to do to get you through – there’s a sense of calm that comes from such preparedness. You mightn’t ever need them but just as animals prep for cold hard winters by storing up resources, you can prepare for your cold hard winters… just in case.

Please don’t ever think you’re a failure because things change. The change is normal, it’s part and parcel of the learning, the growth, the evolving, the finding your feet that you don’t age out of.

You are doing really rather well and I just want you to know that. Keep going, we have got this.

Kim Fry
UKSA Welfare Officer