Every tenish years or so I am reminded rather forcefully that we don’t actually control very much of what is happening in our lives on any given day. I wrote the post that follows in 2015, and I don’t recall exactly what prompted it, except it was one of the years when Google made a major change that caused many business owners to change what they had been doing in a drastic way, but I have a feeling it was also much more than that.
2024 has also been a year with extra curve balls in my life So looking at what I had written 9 years ago felt reassuring – life tends to be cyclical. We as humans are usually more resilient that we tend to believe, and we just need to remember that and trust it.
If you, like me, need some additional assistance beyond remembering that simple truism, energy work and meditation can be extremely helpful. We have a wonderful Reiki Master at Renu whose clients adore her, Rebecca. It’s been a struggle over the years to build the energy part of our practice, but it really is truly amazing work and it helps with so many things.
If any of you are also having a year that seems extra chaotic, perhaps the following will help you feel less alone. If you’d like more support than that, I encourage you to try Reiki with Rebecca at Renu.
From 2015, yet still so very applicable today:
I am a person who likes an organized schedule. Not that I don’t love my free time, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve always been really good at coordinating my many activities so that I get to actually both have and enjoy that free time. In high school I was the only one I knew who was going to movies during finals week since I had already prepped for my exams in advance. I have an aptitude for coordinating employee schedules at work and really love that feeling when everything fits together and just works. But life doesn’t always go that way. The best laid plans don’t always pan out. And sometimes a lot of curve balls come at the same time.
There has been a recurring theme in my life of learning to live with uncertainty and even some chaos. I’ve always been one to have a lot of balls up in the air and for the most part, they do their part and stay their course. Then at one point, the universe had something completely different in mind for the direction my life was to take; all at once my life was turned upside down. Pretty much everything close to me was about to change, and I had to learn how to be OK. And man, was becoming OK a long journey. But I eventually got there and was not only OK, but actually grateful for the events that prompted my new direction, which I would have missed out on if my path hadn’t been completely reshaped. And I was feeling really proud of myself for having come out on the other side.
It’s as if I thought I was done learning this lesson (even though I really do know better), so recently as I’ve been in another set of several uncertain circumstances all at the same time, it really threw me for a loop — again! And these circumstances really pale in comparison to the life-altering ones that happened more than two decades ago. It’s so interesting to me how complacent and comfortable that I can get in feeling so secure with how things have been that I completely miss the bigger messages that it might be time to make some changes. And thus changes get made for me.
So here I go out of my comfort zone again. And though I know in my heart that all will work out fine and will very likely be better than now, it’s still just a rough emotional road for me when these times resurface. And there seems to be no shortcutting the process that my mind and spirit need to go through to get to that point where I am actually comfortable with the uncertainty, and eventually that comfort comes. And instead of feeling the satisfaction of having my planning and organization come together, I have a deeper satisfaction of both knowing that nothing is truly set in stone or secure, and yet I am still better than OK with whatever may present itself along this wonderfully interesting journey of life.
Heidi Aschenbrenner is the owner of Renu Massage, Energy & Bodywork Heidi’s team of bodywork therapists and a Reiki master all strive to achieve balance in each session through the use of energy work incorporated into their bodywork therapies.
