What happens when the abundance of our life changes? It will happen, at least once. Things that we relied on disappear. The world continues to move and we don’t always manage to keep up. We stumble and try to find the path we were on, only to realize that it’s gone. I was going to write that the only constant is change but as I was looking into the origin of said quote, I found this interesting piece. https://euppublishingblog.com/2021/07/19/misunderstanding-of-heraclitus

We might find change jarring, in an adrenaline burst kind of way. It’s hard to tell whether that adrenaline should be a warning, or if it is signaling the start of a new adventure. With change, it’s both, more often than not. At times though, change is a slow, inexorable process that we can do nothing about. These 2 types of change are fairly well codified and understood. All of us have probably experienced both sudden change, like the Tower card in Tarot, and slow change, as in the Death card. We can’t stop change, yet people still try. When something is good, we want to hang onto it forever. When we can’t see the other side, we’re afraid of what we can’t see. Even when something is awful, we are more comfortable with the devil we know.

How do we move through change? It’s a lot like the grieving process, even when it’s a positive change. It’s stages that we must navigate and we cannot predict all the areas of our life that a change will impact. Paying attention to our emotions and thoughts during the process will help. It’s okay to be angry, sad, happy, and fearful, all in one hour. If we choose the change it’s easier. For many years now, I’ve joked that the universe/God/Higher power will start tossing pebbles at me and if I ignore them, the pebbles become bricks. If I ignore the bricks, the bricks become boulders, so I should probably listen at the pebble level. Each pebble is part of the bigger change; it’s part of the process.

Here’s an example of a change I am still navigating. In December 2023, I caught Covid for the 2nd time. I am still recovering but I have not yet regained my sense of taste and smell. Before April 2020, I was paid to cook and share what I cooked. I loved food, cooking, spices, wine, and trying new foods. I wasn’t a chef by any means, not even a line cook, but it was a skill that I had spent nearly 30 years perfecting. It all went away. I did most of my cooking by scent and sound. I began burning anything and everything. I couldn’t tell if food had gone bad by smell and had to learn more ways beyond the obvious ones. I still ask others to check and see of the milk is okay. Now that kind of change is a mix of fast change (oops it’s gone! wait come back!) and inexorable change (accepting it and finding other interests). Over the last year, not only did my senses change, but also because losing those senses could lead to some dangerous blind spots, it has changed nearly every part of my life.

I was all the emotions at one time or another. But I’ve generally made my peace with the loss. If my senses returned tomorrow, it wouldn’t bring back the way things were. We cannot go back, we can bring parts of the past with us, but that’s all. My choice of what to bring with me is bread baking. It’s chemistry, I can do it on a cerebral level. It’s the process of baking. The product might look nice but I have to ask others how it tastes. I can get a bit of sweet, sour and maybe some umami. This is what I’ll bring forward with me. I don’t like the change. I would not have chosen the change, but neither of those things matter.

Get angry. Cry. Smile as you can. One form of abundance can change into another at any time.

What’s my new abundance? I’m still working on that but I have some ideas that incorporate what I’ve learned over the decades.