Healing and Growth are a Choice

I follow some amazing people on social media. Some inspiring and note-worthy ones. Some who are just fabulous friends. Some who stay mostly quiet except to show support for those they care about when it's needed.

The other day I came across this, and it really spoke to me.

It reminded me of our recent moves, which will total four in 29 months by the time we move for the last time in April. None of those moves has been easy on any of our family members. But every one of them has been worth it for a whole slew of reasons.

My husband changed jobs, and there was a while in the beginning when we wondered if we had done the right thing, because we have truly tried hard to follow our instincts in all areas of decision making for our family.

In the end though, it was the right thing. We came to love and appreciate each stage of our growing process, and by the time we got through them, we had been drastically changed as human beings. Indeed, my children, my husband, and I have all learned to view people through a different lens.

Ever since, I've been thinking about how this can apply to other parts of life. As a writer, I do better, write stuff that is more raw and real when I shake things up. As a mother, wife, and woman, I am always better when I break out of the grind of daily routine and do something different.

The next day, another friend posted this, and it just happened to fall in line with the very thoughts that had been on my mind since the first post.

Once again, it spoke to me. Whenever I have been unhappy with my own circumstances, I have worked hard to do whatever I can to change them. When my family has been unhappy, we have worked together, as a family, to change things--including ourselves. It's never easy, but every change we have made has made us infinitely better as people.

As human beings, we all have choices. And we can choose to change and grow. Or not.

What about you? What are you doing to grow lately?

Change is Coming

I don't do this very often, but this week, I'm feeling a bit melancholy, and when that happens, sometimes, the result is poetry. Hope you don't mind if I indulge in sharing here. 

Change is Coming

This week the last of the leaves are turning

Preparing to drift to the ground

A layer of snow dusts the mountain tops

Preparing to stay for the winter

Farmers harvest their fields

Gardeners clip back their plants

People dust off their coats and boots

Getting ready for the temperatures to drop

Animals store their winter supplies

And build sturdy nests to keep them warm

While birds form flocks

And fly south.

The north wind blows

Bringing cold air and change

And a lone whistle sings

That winter is coming.

While families huddle close

Knowing changes in weather

Cannot steal love’s warmth

No matter where they live.

Are you ready?

Have a lovely weekend, and I hope you'll take time to notice the beauty resulting from seasonal changes. I know I will.  

Start with Change

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to attend a workshop session taught by the poetic and brilliant Martine Leavitt. During one of her lectures, she gave our class a bit of advice about beginnings. I don’t remember her exact wording, but she basically told us to start our story on the day when things change.

Real people have those moments regularly. They are the parts of life we may not always want to face, things we don’t always see coming, but they are also the moments that come to define us as people. How will we feel when our town is hit by a natural disaster? How will we react when our parents get divorced? What will we do when someone gets sick and dies, leaving us behind grieving? OR conversely, how will we feel when we reach a goal we’ve been aiming toward for years? How will we react when we find love? What will we do to transplant ourselves in a new place?

These are questions we need to explore with our characters and within our stories. Because change is, by very definition, a conflict of sorts. And every good story is defined by conflict and how the characters overcome the obstacles and beat the odds, just as people are defined by these same things.

So though we might begin with a small glimpse of how things are before, the real story, the part we all look for, happens in the moment when things change.

What life changes have defined you? Have you used those experiences in your writing?  

Refresh and Renew

I don’t know about the rest of you, but every so often, I get the itch to change things up. Try something new. More often than not, these changes involve clothing styles, blog makeovers, and/or hair color and style.

For me, even something as small as a new hair color can absolutely change the way you feel about life and renew your enthusiasm for…whatever.

If you didn’t notice already, I have a beautiful new header. This is thanks to the extremely talented, super-cool Michelle Argyle, who is a genius with Photoshop (among a number of other things). If you’ve never checked out her website and/or her books, you should. I mean, you really should. Didn’t she do a lovely job? Big, huge thanks to Michelle for helping me refresh my blog.

Last weekend, my niece, Kamy, colored and cut my hair. It was another MUCH needed change that has renewed my enthusiasm for life. I know it sounds stupid, but I have learned that sometimes, a new hairstyle = a new outlook.

What do you do when you’re itching for a change? And how does it help you feel renewed?

Why Change is Important

I know I’ve promised to post about writing on Wednesdays, and life on Fridays. Don’t worry. Even though this post is going to start out with discussion about writing, it really is about life.

When I was first learning the important elements of writing a good story, I learned an important lesson. The story starts on the day when things change. This is when the main character (who we may, or may not already know for a few pages) has his or her world turned upside down.

Unfortunately, the reason this is such an important element of story is because this is the thing that gives us a harsh place from which the character can rise and grow.

This is also the case in real life. Change is inevitable. There is nothing we can do to avoid or stop it. Children grow up, relationships change, economic circumstances create difficulty or abundance, people get sick.

Some changes are welcome and exciting. Others are devastating. But all change helps us grow into the people we are, or who we need to become.

A lot of people I know are right now experiencing some serious changes in their lives. Hard changes. Exciting changes. Devastating changes. And I’m not going to tell them that everything will be okay. Maybe it won’t. Maybe things will be hard for a long time. Or maybe it will be okay and they’ll come out ahead or on the very top. But regardless of what each change means to each person, I hope they will remember one very important detail.

This is where your story begins. And all stories, regardless of if the ending is happy or tragic, end with one thing in common. Hope.

What recent changes in your life give you cause to hope?

A Brand New Year

Now that the holidays are over and 2012 is here, people all over the world are making resolutions and goals. Some will be reachable. Some will not.

Believe it or not, I think it’s okay to have a few goals you probably won’t be able to reach in a year. However unlikely, going big gives us something to reach for, to work on, to dream about. And as long as we also set ourselves goals we CAN reach, ones within our control, these are the things that make life interesting.

One of my goals for the year is to rearrange some things and simplify certain areas of my life. For instance, I’m changing my blogging schedule from Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to just Wednesdays and Fridays, with the occasional (maybe once a month or so) contest, which I will probably post on Monday. Hopefully, cutting back (just a little) will make it easier for my readers to keep up with my posts, as well as giving me more time to focus on writing other things.

I’ve also decided to plan a sort-of guideline for my regular posts. I realize that while a good portion of my readers are also writers, that percentage doesn’t include everyone. So I’m going to post about writing on Wednesdays, and about regular life things on Fridays.

For instance, this Friday, I’m talking more about goals. Hope you’ll join me.

Live to Recognize Yourself

Recently, I had an opportunity to visit with an out-of-town relative I haven’t seen in several years. Because of some medical issues, this relative’s appearance has changed considerably since I saw her last, and as a result, she has hidden herself from the world, refusing to even visit the family members who love her regardless of outward appearances.

When I asked her why she’d chosen this path, she explained, “No one recognizes me.”

To which I replied, “I did.”

And I had. The minute she opened the door (I kind of had to push my way in) I recognized her as the cousin I’ve loved my whole life. (Yes, my whole life—she’s older than me by a month.) And those feelings hadn’t changed, even though we both had.

Everyone changes. The whole world changes. Just look at global warming and earthquakes and volcanoes, and climate shifts, and floods. Look at how environments, and people, and economy, and style, and everything and everyone on the planet changes. IT HAPPENS! Nothing ever stays the same as it was yesterday.

But love is everlasting. So I couldn’t understand why my beautiful, vibrant cousin had chosen to put her life on hold to hide from the rest of the world.

It made me wonder. Think. Ponder. When something bad happens to us, do we roll over and die? Do we give up and stop living? Or do we adjust, pick ourselves up and live?

I think the answer should be simple. Not easy, necessarily, but simple. And also complex. We live for ourselves. First, and always ourselves. Then for those we love. And absolutely last—always—for those strangers who might see and not recognize us.

Who are you living for?

Chameleon of Change

You know how I've been claiming I write my blogs on the weekends and schedule them to post? Well. Since it is nearly 10am on Friday and I am only right now writing today's post, obviously, that didn't work out this week. My schedule has been thrown askew.

I'm going all out here, writing off-the-cuff. Yikes!

It's okay. I can adapt. It's one of my strengths.

So, I just finished reading the book Candor by Pam Bachorz (great story, FYI) and am now halfway through Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor. Completely different books. One's a YA dystopian, the other a middle grade contemporary. Waiting to be read next (since it's a library book and gets priority over the other TBR books on my shelf) is Tithe by Holly Black. YA fantasy. Again, very different from the other books.

But this morning I realized all these books have a common theme. In fact, all my most favorite books share some version of this theme.

The main characters are all learning to adapt to the conflicts thrown into their lives. They may not all be Katniss Everdeen, but they're still warriors of one sort or another who take what's thrown at them and go with it, use it, adjust. They may not be happy about it, but they accept that things are changing and rearrange their way of thinking (and sometimes their schedules) and act accordingly. Over the course of the story, the characters themselves change, grow.

Change happens, whether we like it or not. How have you dealt with recent changes in your life? (Good or bad, I'm not picky.) Are you a chameleon of change? A desert gecko turned fish when you reached the ocean? An Arizona desert dweller turned Rocky Mountain snow angel?

And while you're thinking, how has dealing with change made you a better, stronger person?