2019 has been such a year and if I had to describe it in one word I would have to use change. Change of season, change of lifestyle, change, change, change it’s all around us. But do we always recognize it, do we always acknowledge it and do we always honor change and ourselves during change?
Change is….
I guess before recognizing, acknowledging and honoring change we first need to understand what it stands for. Change is change. I know I can do better than that but that’s all I prefer to define it as because it’s more than words it’s a moment, it’s a feeling and it certainly is an experience. Change is that moment where you go from one thing to another. It’s a feeling of uncertainty and in terms of experience there’s always a new experience. Change looks different and it certainly can be daunting and yet it’s the one thing that is constant in our everyday human experiences.
As much as we like to think that we have it all figured out, we really don’t. Who knows what is going to happen in the next 5 minutes, next 24 hours, next year? And yes I understand that you can plan your life, in fact, I am the chief executive of this association. you can most definitely plan what you are going to eat tomorrow maybe even next week. But let’s say your favorite restaurant is doing a stock take and you had planned to go there for dinner. When you get there they are closed, what are you going to do? Eat at the restaurant? No, you’re going to change your choice and eat elsewhere.
The above example of not being able to eat at your favorite restaurant makes sense right? What if we applied that same logic to our behavior patterns, our perceptions, our thoughts, our views, and our self-talk? I don’t know about you but it used to take chaos and tragedies for me to change my mind. How absolutely tragic? Very!
Closer to home
In 2016, July 26 to be exact I made a social post about a then health crisis I was experiencing. The post caption read; “My name is Nonkululeko Judy Ever-changing Dlamini! Who I was a year ago is not who I was a week ago”. When I made this post I was making my way back to my mother’s house from the dermatologist. My body had just erupted in what my new doctor thinks is guttate psoriasis. Yes, it has taken me 3 entire years to find Doctors that speak my language! Don’t give up your people are out there.
Thankfully I have been in remission 3 entire years and I am so grateful to myself for putting in the work. Putting in the work? Yes for putting in the work! You see psoriasis is so much more than just a skin condition. Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease which means my immune system will sometimes attack itself. Psoriasis was just the gateway for me to understand that I have an immune system that loves me so much that when it protects me, she sometimes attacks her own self. I know profound right? Fear not you will read all about it.
A toast
I’m still relearning about what it means to have an autoimmune disease because up until 2 years ago I thought I had cured myself. Except I had only managed it and my triggers really well that I had been in remission, until recently. My journey of understanding what an autoimmune disease is or what it means for me specifically is a journey that I am still going through. I still have no idea what tomorrow has in store for me but all I have ever known is that no matter what, I will show up and show out for me.
What am I changing? I’m changing my relationship with stress to be able to do this. I have to get really clear on what has anything to do with me, what doesn’t and where I can grow. I haven’t altogether figured it all out. But I know that it’s going to take me applying myself in my own life. So goodbye value systems and perceptions that don’t serve me. You will find me expressing, exploring and from all of that cultivating my own human experience. And if I start to give a damn about anyone’s opinion about this I will ask myself; ‘Are they paying my medical bill?’ and then keep it moving, swiftly.
Here’s to accepting yourself, acknowledging yourself, working with yourself and honoring yourself in change and consistency alike.