Change

Change comes in varied forms, be it: self-generated, externally motivated, or the change we chalk up to magic or destiny. My most recent experience with change was of the self-created kind, with a hint of fate. It was the type of change I saw coming, the kind of change my ego thought it could prepare for.  Of course, somewhere beneath the layers, my wiser self knew the only thing to prepare for was to radically detach from any and all expectations. This is the ‘capital C change’ that sneaks up on you and shakes up your life.

The last nine months of gestation was my process of change disguised as three trimesters. The first trimester caught me off guard and kept me on guard as I silently waited out those precarious first few weeks. The second trimester allowed me some time to wrap my head and heart around things: holy fuck, I’m going to be a mama? By third trimester, all you can think of is change. You start to amass all of the items you think you need to keep a newborn alive. In my case, you move across the city so that you can afford keeping an extra human being in your rented home. You paint walls, you fold onesies and you start thinking about the biggest change yet to come: when this creature leaves your body, takes its first breath and divides your life between the ‘before baby’ and ‘after baby’ halves.

I attempted a lot of ‘manifesting’ during this portion of the change process. Our goal was a home birth. I researched and rented a water birthing tub. I prepared snacks and stocked my fridge with electrolyte-laden beverages. I bought candles and dreamed up an atmosphere conducive to the most peaceful, spiritual way to bring a baby into this world.  I used my meditation practice to navigate my way toward this change. I was envisioning my body opening up to birth her: my third chakra firing away, being fuelled by the air from my heart centre above and ceding to the watery movement in my second chakra below. It struck me one day: what if this doesn’t go as planned? I started gauging how my emotional body felt if I imagined giving birth in a hospital room. It felt okay. I tried not to give it much stock beyond that sentiment.

Our daughter came into this world in exactly the exact opposite fashion to what we had hoped for: not in a candlelit atmosphere, but under the sterile lighting of an operating room. Had this labor happened to a younger version of myself, my response may also have been the exact opposite to what I manifested: fear, anger, resentment. (And don’t get me wrong, some of these sentiments have bubbled up post-delivery.) But in that moment, lying prone on an operating table, I was euphoric, ecstatic, excited. This was definitely not the way I envisioned my life-changing moment. But from it, I pulled an immensely valuable lesson: respond to change (the big stuff, capital C change) with surrender. Look around it, before and after the change. See what precursors were hinting towards it and what emotions form the residue of it.  And when these practices fail, the best thing to do is laugh. How absurd is it that I thought I could PLAN this? I have a feeling that’s a question I’ll be asking myself time and time again.