Learning to Love Change

For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes. –Dag Hammarskjold

Saying Yes to Change is the title of Alex Blackwell’s new book. I loved the title before I ever started reading the book, and things just got better from there. If you don’t know Alex yet, he writes The Bridgemaker, one of my favorite blogs.

I’m coming late to the book review party, so you may have already read some of the many excellent reviews and interviews. At one point, I wondered what I could possible add to the plethora of praise pouring out over this book. (I love the word “plethora” and look for opportunities to use it!) But I realized that every reviewer or interviewer was taking a personal message or lesson from the book, so that no two reviews were the same. And that, I think, is the highest praise. What that means is that this book has an important message just for me. And for you, too.

Alex begins by telling a story, his story, the story of a painful childhood. He tells it in stark and moving honesty, yet without self pity. The scars left were some that many of us can relate to – perfectionism and denial. I knew them both well for much of my life. As Alex describes getting to the point in his adult life when he knew it was time to change, I was so excited. Anytime anyone says yes to changing his life, then all of us benefit and can be inspired to change our own.

To help us along, Alex offers 10 life lessons, simple and direct, blending his story with the wisdom he has gained. Each lesson is broken down into strategies that are easy to understand and immediately applicable in our daily lives. Change isn’t far in the future. We can start right now.

As I said, the beauty of the book is that there is a special message in it for each of us. All the lessons are ones that all of us, I think, will relate to and benefit from. But one, perhaps, will stand out just for you.

For me, it was the second one, “Find freedom from pain.” Just even reading those words hit a tender, raw place in my heart. I took a deep breath and read on. Our typical way of dealing with pain is to deny it or try to escape it. The first step in finding freedom from pain, Alex says, is to acknowledge it, and the second is to accept it. No denial. No escape. Not such an enticing idea. But the payoff is freedom. Soul healing, spirit lightening, freedom. When pain is no longer so scary, when we no longer try to beat it into submission or hide from it, it becomes a doorway to freedom.

Buddhists teach about the “suffering of suffering.” In other words, when life’s inevitable challenges come knocking, we spend so much effort struggling with them that we become locked into pain. Instead, we could, as Alex suggests, simply allow, release, let go. Refocus on our beauty and strengths, on the blessings that accompany all of life’s unfolding.

So much of life’s pain comes from our resistance to change. In her book Open the Door, Joyce Rupp quotes a poem about change, the last line of which is “Change is beautiful; you will learn to love it.” The poem was written by a 12 year old girl who died in a car accident the day after she wrote it, making the poem even more poignant and perhaps even prescient.

We don’t know the details of tomorrow’s gifts, but we do know that the gifts will come wrapped in change. Alex’s book Saying Yes to Change helps us learn to love it.

Click here for more information about the book and how to buy it.

related posts: The Courage to Change; It Is Not So; The Doors of Change