What is meaningful change?
The only thing constant in life, is change.
Change is inevitable. We can fight against it or learn to embrace it - either way, change still happens.
But what if we could harness change and make it meaningful? What would it take to create meaningful change?
For me, creating meaningful change means living with intention and purpose. It’s figuring out who I am at my core and rediscovering my true self. It is standing strong in my values and living with integrity. It’s discovering my purpose and intentionally working towards realising it.
Meaningful change is also about facing adversity head on. It’s about embracing life’s challenges and exploring what they can teach us about ourselves. It’s about taking painful experiences and making meaning from them. Learning from our mistakes and taking a different path in the future. It’s realising that we are all works-in-progress, always changing and evolving.
For as long as I can remember I thought my purpose in life was to become a mother. I believed it with every fibre of my being - it was my destiny. Years went by and it still hadn’t happened for me, so I launched myself into IVF like a woman possessed. Everything else in my life stood still and I had a singular focus of becoming pregnant. Failed cycle after failed cycle, loss after devastating loss later, I finally had to accept that it wasn’t going to happen for me. I looked into adoption, but having already exhausted my savings it was not an option. I explored foster care, but I just knew that my heart couldn’t take having to let go of another child.
It took such a long time to come to terms with the loss, not just of losing my babies, but with the loss of a promise. I grieved for the life I wanted and would never have. Who was I if I couldn’t become a mother? Around this time, a beautiful friend of mine asked me why I wanted kids. I sat with that question for a really long time. Truth be told, the answers weren’t forthcoming. I had so much love to give and I just wanted to share it. But was becoming a mother the only way I could share my love?
Eventually I realised that there are a million different ways for me to share my love with the world. I am surrounded by love. I’m an aunt, a godmother, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. Every morning I am greeted by the purrs of my sweet kitty and I feel such contentment. Quite simply, I love my life. It looks nothing like I thought it would, but I love it nonetheless.
I am almost 50 and I finally feel like I know myself on a deeper level than I ever have before. And you know what? I really love this person I’m becoming. She has an abundance of compassion and empathy. She tries to spread kindness every day.
She has found her purpose - to bring light and hope to others in their darkest hour.
I can look back on every experience in my life thus far and know that I am who I am because of them. I once tried to fight change - kicking and screaming against it, but it was when I surrendered to it that I was able to find peace and create meaning from the pain.
Every day is a new opportunity to cultivate meaningful change and I couldn’t be more grateful for it.
© 2024 Jodie Blewitt - meaningfulchangecounselling.com.au