When I think of periods of transition, whether big life transitions like moving home or small ones like a change in temperature, our bodies need to adapt. We humans are designed to adapt, like any other animal we must adapt to life's circumstances on a daily basis. The better one adapts to change, the more likely they are to survive (ie. live longer, healthier and probably happier too).
Now the thing is, we have reached a point in our evolution where we have made life more adapted to us. More comfort means less opportunity to face challenges, and therefore grow and adapt. We are, let's be honest, weaker, despite all the technologies out there to make us believe we have more control and power.
If we are not used to facing challenges and adapting regularly, what does that mean for our health? But also, does our modern culture make us more tired, stressed and dysfunctional and therefore less ready to deal with challenges when they arise?
How Can We Become More Resilient & Better at Embracing Change
Reduce Our Exposure to The Toxic Aspects of Modern-Day Life
- Eat clean, organic foods
- Drink filtered or spring water
- Wear toxic-free clothing
- Use toxic-free cleaning products, beauty products and paints
- Avoid fragrances
- Reduce our exposure to EMFs (emitted from all electronic devices, many studies show their harmful effects on our systems)
- Prioritise frequenting places with clean air and sunlight
How is this relevant to an article on embracing change? Because embracing change, embracing life and feeling ready to tackle challenges that arise require a great deal of vital energy. We can do as much breathwork as we want, if we are not honest with ourselves about our daily choices, we will never gain the kind of vitality we are all looking to have.
No need to become obsessed with each one of these suggestions - stressing about every label, product and purchase is going to do more harm than good - but keep those in mind when you make your purchases; choose the better option.
Our systems are overloaded with toxic chemicals, metals, micro-plastics and those are having great effects on our health. They mess up with our hormones, weaken our immunity; we feel more tired, more stressed, our vitality decreases overall.
Metabolic stress is the hardest and most important one to tackle, without good metabolic health, our perceived mental and emotional stress from daily stressors will keep increasing.
Here's a simple example:
Think about a simple stressor that we all experience regularly: someone cuts you off while driving, now think about how that seems to impact you (perceived stress) on a day where you had a good 8-9 hours of sleep, had a nutritious breakfast, you're hydrated and you actually looked out your window first thing in the morning instead of your phone.
On the other hand, think about how that would impact you on a day where you started your day checking your phone, drinking a cup of coffee no water, had a muffin for breakfast and slept 4-5 hours. Can you sense the difference? Now apply that to every single day for years and years. Your system may adapt to this lifestyle but where do you think your vitality is by now? How resilient are you really by now?
Change Your Perspective
As explained above, we can clearly see that how we perceive life's challenges plays a key role in our ability to deal with them. Some things really matter and some things really don't, and although we are all unique in defining which is which, when we take a step back we often realise that what we thought was the end of the world, really isn't.
How does that work? Distance, time, patience. This is one of the great tools that Yoga teaches, to take the place of the witness. The witness reviews the situation from a distance before reacting - this can happen in half a second in our minds or sometimes we really need to take time to step back and think. Either way, the key here is to learn to be more receptive and less reactive. That's not to say that we shouldn't feel angry, stressed, nervous, sad when a challenge arises, feeling those emotions is an extremely important aspect of this process, but once they pass, we can regain a clearer perspective on the situation.
What can you do?
Practice mindfulness meditation - learn to watch your thoughts as they arise
Spend time in nature or watching animals - nature is intrinsically patient and receptive
Cut down social media time - social media is designed to make us reactive and impulsive
Practice saying "I'll get back to you on that" more often
Remember that your attention is the most precious and profitable resource nowadays.
Practice Being Out of Your Comfort Zone
No need to go off and book a skydiving experience, but in a controlled, safe manner, practice making yourself uncomfortable. This will not only make you more resilient but it will also increase your self-confidence.
Here are some ideas you can explore:
Take a trip without a GPS
Start a conversation with a stranger (in real life, not online!)
Make a new recipe that is totally foreign to you
Take a different route to your job
Rent a bike instead of taking your car for your next short-distance trip
Take a trip somewhere you've never been (can also be a neighbourhood in your city that you never explored)
Go out a whole day without your phone
When we think back to the times where farmers used to look at the stars and tides to predict the weather; when people used to go in the wild and could identify which plants to feed on; when human beings were in touch with nature in that way, they had such a strong intuition, they knew what to do in each situation; challenges didn't scare them. Today we can barely remember what we did two minutes ago, we have lost touch with nature and its rhythms, we are so completely disconnected and yet more connected than ever.
Technological advances are phenomenal when used appropriately, the problem is that they don't come with a user manual or with a time limit and our brains, which are designed to choose the path of least resistance, will always favour the easy way out. That's all good, until the easy way out becomes the way to our loss of freedom.
This article is not AI generated, it expresses my true feelings and therefore it is not easily consumable like the marketing content we love to read on social media - so if you reached me all the way down here, I'm proud of you hah! My true belief is that there are no shortcuts to health and happiness - and never will be. My only hope is that it inspired you one way or another, or perhaps sparked a reflection or a thought!
To dive deeper, you can join my upcoming online Yoga series "Embrace Change". We will practice exercises, study ancient wisdom, learn from our body's wisdom - all to learn to embrace change and become more resilient and receptive. We meet live online every Wednesday 7pm (Lisbon)/8pm (Paris) / 2pm (Miami) + you'll have access to all my previous recordings (that's over 30 full length yoga practices). Sign up here.
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