Fearless Blossoming
Finding grace in the discomfort of change. By Komal Dadlani
We all want new and better, but when change comes into our lives, dismantling the old so the new can blossom, we meet it reluctantly and stubbornly, fearfully pushing it away. We want change and better but resist and fear the process through which it unfolds. Hesitant and wary of what change might involve, we hold on to the old at the expense of our growth, sabotaging the very change we have so earnestly worked for and called into our lives. How can we embrace change and harness the transformation we so deeply desire, while bypassing the discomfort of things changing? Paradoxical, yet very much possible when we nurture the right perspective toward change – and this is where the Vedic scriptures can be of much help:
Change as realignment, not punishment
Change and loss are not punishment and something that is challenging isn’t necessarily bad. Losing people and opportunities isn’t ‘bad fate’ or karma. Things get taken away from you, not to make you suffer, but they are stripped off because they are no longer you or you have evolved from their lessons.
Lose your ‘self’ to find the ‘Self’
Losing something does not mean losing yourself. Our ego often confuses loss and change with diminishment, as though worth could be reduced!But it cannot. Resorting to Krishna’s teachings: nothing can ever weaken your essence. Paraphrasing: “weapons cannot cut you, disease cannot touch you, the wind cannot dry you”. What is truly essential and eternal in you can never be lost. Dare to take risk and stir things up. The only thing you can truly lose is the reward of the opportunities you didn’t take!
Change is abundant in resources
One of the biggest obstacles to change is the fear that we might not have the strength, endurance or capabilities to see it through. It is helpful here to remember the Gita’s teachings on karma yoga and action. Your job is to focus on the action. The universe’s job is to support it. Every challenge and change comes with an expert toolkit – in the form of people, advice and resources, when you are willing to notice them. I understand this is a huge leap of faith if you’ve never ‘leaned in’ before. I draw belief from observing something as simple as my heartbeat, which keeps me alive without ever asking it to do so. Swami Sivananda used to say that the support of the universe is unequivocally evident in the simplest of things – your pulse, your breath, your digestion. “Shut not your ears to it”, he would say. You don’t need a supernatural experience to know you are supported. Your own body and physiology are proof of it. He also used to say, the universe and the creator are always trying to nurture and reach you. How much more could it ‘love you’, in his words, if you turned to it with faith and devotion?
Security is a non-entity (security is an illusion)
Even if you resist change believing you are safer keeping things as they are, that is a false sense of control and security. How many of the things you have wished to protect from change have changed regardless? Predictability does not guarantee security or control.
Change is grace
When things leave you, it can bring a sense of loneliness and shake your sense of identity to such an extent that you are forced to find solace and comfort within yourself. Voila! Therein lies the whole purpose of a lifetime of yoga practice done for you in a single moment of hardship and sorrow. Krishna speaks of it over and over again in the Bhagavad Gita: His most effective lessons, he tells us, come through the passing of time, loss and change. Grace, he says manifests as the great destroyer – time itself. You awaken to your true Self, through change.
Loss as a re-birth
Not a very popular opinion, but growth always asks for something in return. A door cannot open until another is closed – so close it consciously and close it willingly! We must give up the illusion that ‘better’ is possible without letting go: say no, walk away and make peace with loss. Nothing real is ever lost. Krishna is clear on this. What you release is not making you or your comfort in life disappear – it is making space for something truer, larger, and more purposeful. Celebrate endings. They are not failures, they are initiations.
Change turns your attention towards the eternal
We often experience loss and change as threats to our identity, when their purpose is to do precisely the opposite. Losing things is how we find our truth again. Notice this: you are still here – alive, functioning and thriving – despite ageing, despite losing youth, body shape, jobs and relationships. When these things left you, what happened to you? You remained. In the scriptures, change is always spoken of as the creator’s most effective tool for revealing who we truly are. We are none of those things that leave us – which is precisely why we survive without them. Time will always inflict change upon those things you are ferociously attached to and dismantle what you cling to most fiercely, not to punish you, but to show you that you can endure without them — and that you never truly needed them in the first place. There isn’t a more effective way to reveal to you that what really holds you in life is the Self – your undeniable and unbreakable truth and everything else you attach to, is false and impermanent in the sustenance it provides. This is the great teaching of change.
A blessing in retrospect
Difficulty lives in perspective: change feels harsh and challenging when we judge it as a fixed event in time. Change is a blessing when we see the role it had in delivering the next chapter of our lives.
Change is creative
Discomfort during change forces us to re-prioritise, to be creative and build character in ways we would not otherwise be compelled to. In the Gita, it is spoken of as ‘Shreya’ — tastes like poison at first but culminates in strength and joy!
To summarise
- Change will feel uncomfortable when it is undoing what you have outgrown.
- Nothing is taken to punish you. Things fall away because they are not you.
- Loss realigns. Discomfort refines.
- Change unsettles the ego and returns you to the Self – unbound, resourceful, and whole.
- You are never asked to change without support. Bloom fearlessly.
- Change is never a hazard. Our relationship with change is.
Connect with Komal Dadlani on Instagram @komi_yogi
Om Magazine
First published in November 2009, OM Yoga magazine has become the most popular yoga title in the UK. Available from all major supermarkets, independents and newsstands across the UK. Also available on all digital platforms.
