I had to get a new number plate fitted on my car today. The previous one had disappeared without me noticing, likely taken by a slightly feisty river I drove through. I took the car to the shop and the guy very carefully went to screw the new plate on and it promptly fell straight off. When we looked, we saw the holes had been warped and would no longer accept the same kind of connection and so he had to adhere it rather than use screws. And it got me thinking about connection and underlying structure.
See, we often assume the old ways we have used are going to work. We don’t even consider that they are not going to. They worked before, why wouldn’t they work now? What we forget is if we are on a path of growth and exploration, sometimes there have been changes deeper down, and so when we go and try the old ways, they don’t work anymore, because the underlying structure has changed and it won’t accept the old way. And maybe we keep trying anyway, getting angry that it won’t work anymore, frustrated, sad… We judge ourselves and we hate on ourselves and we don’t understand and we forget to look deeper, preoccupied with the not-working and not wanting to look deeper at the why, at the possible lesson, at the opportunity to try new ways. And yet there is no fault here, it’s just that things have happened, life has occurred and so we have to find new ways. It’s not my cars fault I have driven it hard for years and warped the plastic, I don’t judge it for that. I thank it for keeping me safe for so long, allowing me to get place to place, enduring ford crossings and endless bumpy back lanes and motorways and the rush and bustle and unpredictability of the roads. And so why, when it comes to ourselves, do we not always extend the same generosity?
Life shapes us, it changes us, it warps and moulds and affects our very structure. Science is continually proving this… DNA can be changed… Fascia can be released… We are constantly being reformed over and over and over. And so sometimes, when we try to apply the old ways we used to use, they don’t work anymore, and then we have a choice. Either we get mad and try to force it and make it happen, and then get even angrier when it falls apart in front of us, or we find a new way, a different way, not better or worse, just different. We accept that we are fluid beings and our structure changes and life forms and reforms us over and over. We find new ways to connect. We meet ourselves where and how we are at. And then we carry on. And it’s ok.
My car still drives. It will still take me places. It has a shiny new number plate held on by super sticky adhesive patches. There was a different way to connect and for it to be. Not better or worse, just different.
And so it is with us, new ways become necessary, not better or worse, just different. We adjust. We flow. We change. We carry on. We go to new places and have new experiences and we remember the old because maybe we bear the scars and the reminders. The warped holes beneath my new number plate will always be there, but it’s just a reminder that we used to do it differently, and now we are doing it differently again.
If we move WITH our circumstances, WITH our lives, WITH our structure and our deeper changes, if we meet ourselves how we are now, not how we used to be, then we adapt, we embrace the new, and maybe the new is better, maybe we don’t like it so much, but there is a peace to be found in the acceptance. And so life continues. Cars break, things get warped, we keep on exploring anyway….