Mind Like Water

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(Prologue: Aaaaackkkkkk!!! It's not making paragraphs! This just makes my whole post even more apropos! Who needs this kind of change? I did not realize this until after writing the whole thing and posting it. Ha! Is Google now reading what I write and trying to get me back for not liking what they did?) I was reading a friend's blog yesterday about the importance of learning to go with the flow, to adapt to change, to reduce reactivity. How do I practice flowing rather than blocking? How do I encounter and then move around obstacles with the least resistance? I was amen-ing what he had written in my mind so much that I even left a comment on the blog, not something I do a lot. The past few years have brought a lot of change for me. Recently I wrote to a friend in France that since visiting her in 2008, I've had four different work situations since we visited (which has meant working out of a total of ten different offices), and we've moved to a new house. And that doesn't begin to tell the story of all the major changes that came into my life because of situations involving family and friends and my own personal journey physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I know I haven't dealt with all of these changes with a "mind like water." I've done some blocking and put up some resistance, even with my intention of doing my best to learn and grow through them. Blocking and resisting notwithstanding, I've made it through. Four years after that trip to France, I'm basically sane and sound and enjoying life--and even hoping to start finally learning French. I just realized tonight, though, that Blogger made the changes they've been warning us of. I doubt they think of it as "warning." They probably thought we'd all be excited by the new streamlined look, the cleaner page, the whatever else they've done that I'm not thinking of or haven't yet discovered. But I don't care for it. It looks very impersonal. Blank, empty, machine-like, ugly in some way I'm not sure I can describe. They've done it, and there's no going back. When it hit me that this was it, and there was no saying goodbye to the old format, I had a moment of panic and anger. Then a moment of wondering why it bothered me so much. And then realized that one reason these little changes bother me so much, is that life is so full of big changes. It takes a lot of energy to change jobs, move to a new house, start a new business, deal with accidents and illnesses and other major stressors. Who wants to have to spend all their "mind like water" energy and effort on little things like adjusting to a new blogging format? I think I like the little things to stay the same because there are so often big things that cannot stay the same, and I want my energy and effort available for those. Oh, well, that's my thinking about it tonight, at any rate. I've encountered one more obstacle to move around. And right now I'm feeling pretty resistant to it! Because I'm still tired from encounters with much bigger obstacles. I think it makes sense. Or I suppose it could just be that I've been an old fuddy-duddy all my life.