Wiser by Day
Steadying Through Change · Lesson 1 of 6 · Free
Change is ordinary
For change that unsettles you. Meet it with steadiness, one small step at a time.
Read the first lesson
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The lesson
Welcome. A move, a new job, a plan that falls apart: change can make the ground feel loose. Over six short days, we'll practise finding steadiness while things shift. Today, we start by saying what's changing.
Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature?Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, 7.18
George Long, 1862
Marcus isn't saying change is painless. He's pointing out that nothing at all happens without it. The morning becomes the afternoon. Food becomes a meal. Your own life is made of changes, most of which you never noticed. Seeing change as the ordinary condition won't remove the unease, but it can take away the extra feeling that this one shouldn't be happening to you.
Try it for yourself
A short reflection
Bring to mind one change that's unsettling you right now. Don't go into the details or the worry. Just finish this sentence in your mind: what's changing is. Then name one thing that's stayed the same through it. A person, a habit, a place. Rest on that for a moment. If it feels like too much, you can stop at any time. Take two and a half minutes.
One question to write about
What is changing, and what has stayed the same?
You can reflect without writing. Nothing you think or write on this page is collected.