Conquering the Fear of Change and Thriving in Life's Seasons

083. Have you ever stared at the mirror and wondered why life keeps pushing you into the whirlpool of change?

Life is a rollercoaster that tests our adaptability, resilience, and courage. I've been there, standing at the precipice of change, unsure of what lurks in the dark of uncertainty. 

But I've also seen the light at the end of the tunnel and embraced the transformation that follows. Together, we're going to explore how to conquer the fear of the unknown and thrive in our current season of life, no matter how daunting it may seem. 

I'll share my personal journey of navigating life's curveballs and how it led me to a newfound sense of purpose and opportunities.

Have you ever wondered why we resist the transformation even though deep down we know it's for the better? Let me tell you, 'this too shall pass' is not just a phrase; it's a truth that underlines the transient nature of life. We'll talk about being adaptable, staying relevant amid constant change, and harnessing it to flourish in every season of life. We'll also tackle how external factors, personal choices, life events, and traumas shape our journey. 

So, if change unnerves you or you're feeling stuck, let's step into this world of endless possibilities together and thrive in our current season of life.

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Transcript

Marijanel: 0:00

Have you been struggling with any kind of change in your life or resisting transformation and maybe you feel like you're stuck in a really challenging or difficult season of your life, like things just aren't going well and you know it's a season, but you feel really stuck, like change isn't happening fast enough. You're going to really enjoy today's show. Let's get to it. I know you are all going to really appreciate the insight you'll get from today's show as we explore thriving in the current season of life we're in. We're even going to explore how to know what season of life we're in and what it even means and how temporary seasons really are, which helps us through the tough ones, and it's going to be a really insightful talk. But before we dive too deep into today's podcast, I want to remind you my book Wait, Darling, Wait , a picture book for children, is now available on Amazon. It's an easy click where you click through your order on or you look up my name on Marijanel, Knight the links are below and the order gets arrived to your doorstep so quickly. I'm amazed by the turnaround time. Thank you to all of you who have already purchased this book and left a review on Amazon and been supporting me through this process. It's been really incredible to launch this book, to see this chicken fly into the world and you know what? A couple of nights ago I was reading this book to a friend's grandson. He's only about two years old and, you know, because I don't have grandchildren of my own right now, it's like I don't get that hands-on, like moments to really see kids' reactions. I haven't started any school tours yet or library tours, and so reading to this little guy was so much fun because every single time that I came to the chicken he would say chicken, chicken, just like that. I'm not exaggerating, it was so cute. So I've been calling this my chicken book, and so I really want to urge you to hop on Amazon and buy your chicken book and have so much fun with it, with the little ones in your life.

Marijanel: 2:18

As we dive into today's podcast on thriving in our current season, I have a couple of things to say to preface the podcast, because I was watching the review of the show, just making sure there was like anything I needed to edit, and I realized that since the time of recording the podcast, I've actually had a huge shift in my own personal and professional season, I've had a shift. Just by releasing the book, I have had this whole new world of children's book publishing just kind of like open up to me and fall in my lap, something that I didn't even realize I was so passionate about. I have shared with you about my little bit about my illustration journey, a little bit about coming back into the voice of my creativity, and I shared a couple weeks back that I just really need to start integrating the into the Marijanel Show, and I didn't really know what that even means. But as this book released out into the world, I have felt my life change. Like just one thing that we do, one little decision or step, that we take a step of confidence, a step of risk, whatever it is, can literally change our life. And I have been feeling that as my life is changing from stepping into the children's book publishing world, my seasons are changing and, as you hear me speak about and share about seasons today, I want you to even be prepared and knowing that the season and flavor of this show and even what's happening in me is changing and let it be a ripple effect. Let it be like this little, like inspiration of wind to you, like to just like whoosh, just sort of like, give you a breath of fresh air and together let's shift into new seasons.

Marijanel: 4:15

I know that some of what I'm pondering about being in Q4 headed into 2024, and what does the Marijanel show look like in a whole new year and a whole new season? It'll be the third season of the show. What will it even look like? And I feel like it's going to take some big changes again. It did last year and it will again, because we need to let the outspring and the overflow of what we're producing as creative people match up to the season that we're in. And I'm shifting into this whole new season, and I think you are too. So hold on tight and let's go into this topic of thriving in our current season.

Marijanel: 4:56

Today we're going to be talking about change and seasons and being adaptable in the times of change and seasons. That, whatever we're experiencing, if there's anything that people who've observed my life for a really long time would say about me, they would say Marijanel, you're very adaptable, you're flexible. I've had some of the strangest quickest life changes get thrown my way like a curveball and I've been quick to flex and bend and move with the changing tides. I've figured out all along the way when you go to take a step of faith and it's not what you think, the stepping stone falls out from underneath you or whatever it is goes wrong and you have to be quick on your feet. You have to think and move and make that transition as gracefully as you possibly can. This is something that I've become particularly good at. You all know, if you've listened to previous podcasts, I've moved a chazillion times in my life.

Marijanel: 5:57

When someone moves a lot, when they're forced to change homes, they learn how to adapt and change. When someone is forced out of different careers and positions and life just has its way of like, let's say, changing the tide or, you know, changing directions on you, you just have to go with it and make the most of it. There's that good old classic saying that, like, when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. When life throws you a curveball, you do your best to catch it and figure out what to do with it. I don't know, I just made that one up.

Marijanel: 6:35

But basically I have learned to flex and I've learned deep within myself that all things are temporary, and that means this too shall pass Means that whatever it is that we're experiencing in life, it comes to an end eventually. And even this life is temporary in itself and it serves as a reminder that both the positive and the negative experiences that we're having in our lives, these are fundamental to human existence and they're all temporary. And if we get stuck, if you get stuck there, feeling like it's never going to end and you just get down in the dumps about your situation or season, you're never going to be able to bloom where you're planted or make the most of your situation. And I love to say and remind you this we are made for change, you are made to change. And if you're not changing, then you really need to ask yourself the key question what am I doing if I'm not changing? And if particularly changing for the better? Sometimes we can regress, we can make changes for the worse. That's not good either. We want to push forward into bigger, better things, become better people and grow our faith and our trust deeper and stronger through the course and the cycles of our lifetime, and not go the other way around.

Marijanel: 8:14

So the phrase this too shall pass I don't mean it flippantly, I don't mean it like whatever you're going through. This too shall pass. It's not said in that tone or heart. Rather, it's suggesting that no matter how difficult your season or situation is, it's not permanent. The better days will eventually come, and this serves as a reminder that in times of happiness or great success, we often see the closing of those seasons as well. People who have risen to the top of their game or they have experienced the greatest of successes in their lifetime in their field or realm, that too comes to an end.

Marijanel: 9:00

We all retire from what we're good at, and that awareness is important to keep us in check, staying humble and remembering that good times are also transient. So, in essence, this too shall pass is a reminder for us to keep in perspective the ups and the downs. Both are temporary, and the joy and the sorrows are temporary. And in moving forward, to say this that in the temporary state of whatever we're in, whether you're in the most amazing season of your life, you've never had so much joy. Things are going so well. Or perhaps some of you are on the other side and things are never been worse. Either way, we need to embrace the idea that we there's a saying, it sounds harsh, but evolve or die, adapt or perish. Essentially, change with the times or you get left behind. That rhymes. I should make it a poem change with the times or get left behind. Stay relevant in your changing environment and move with it. It is so hard to do, but I assure you you were made to change.

Marijanel: 10:25

We've talked a lot about purpose and understanding our purposes, the small little things of purpose and tensions and meaningful life roles that accumulate to the bigger purpose, and I painted the picture like our purpose would be like a big garden and our purposes are like every individual flower or plant growing in that garden, that the garden has realms and that these realms are like the areas of texture, color and design within the garden. Those are realms. They're like the roles that you fulfill. And then there's the thing that's out of our control, that affects it all, and that's the season. And within the seasons that come and go, we need to adapt in order to survive. We need. It's just the way it is, and I feel that an essential role that I play as a mentor, in leading you through personal discoveries, in teaching you to journal and do self reflection, it is to help you adapt. It is to help you change.

Marijanel: 11:40

I used the word transform. I kind of get hooked on words. You might have noticed that about me and for a while I was using the word transformation and I've said time and again that transformation is slow and that's something we all resist. We don't like it. So, going back to my very first lines of the podcast where I challenged you, perhaps there's a resisting change, you don't want to change, and you're digging your heels in and you're like I don't want to change. I wonder if it's because change is slow and you stay in that process of growth in that one area of change for longer than you wish. Like if we could all snap our fingers and have the change we want, we would do it that way. But snapping our fingers or waving a magic wand and having instant results doesn't teach us character and resilience, and so our resilience is challenged to show itself to be strong when we go through continuous, steady and sometimes difficult changes. So I'm really challenging myself to embrace change and really leaning in to what does it mean for me right now, in the season of life that I'm in, to transform? So you know, in all of the chat that I've done on the podcast here about growing, about growing and transforming, I want to relieve your pressure to constantly strive for self-betterment, a while cheering you on in transformation. It's like I want you to know that right here, right now, you are enough, and yet I want you to know that you have so much potential. I'm made to change, but I'm enough. Let's say it together I am made to change, but I am enough.

Marijanel: 13:53

Okay so, lastly, here on the show, I want to talk about how circumstances affect the seasons of our life. Okay, so, circumstances play a massive, significant impact on what we experience in the seasons of our life. These are all the external factors, the personal choices that lead us to basically entering a time period. It can be an economic status, family dynamics like, for example, do you have little kids or big kids or no kids, or, you know, aging parents or sick dogs? I mean, I'm not meaning to make things up, but it is. See, it is a season. As I mentioned, this too shall pass, but it is a season. Our health and well-being affects the season, our educational opportunities or what we've accomplished in our education, for example, there's the season of being a student and then a season of being the professional. There's cultural and societal norms that affect our seasons of life. Even our geographical location and literal seasons of what's, you know, happening in the precipitation around us affects our life seasons, our personal choices. These include careers, relationships, lifestyles. They play a crucial role in the seasons and the different paths and outcomes.

Marijanel: 15:20

Life events and trauma also affect our seasons. For example, if you are healing from a trauma, you will be in a season, and what I have found is that seasons overlap with one another. I shared a story way back in the podcast when it was still called curiosity's apprentice. I shared a story about losing a life too soon a dear friend of mine who was tragically killed in a car accident. That season of grief, which lasted far too long, it was a deep season of grief in my life, overlapped with the season of parenting young children, and those two seasons overlapping gave me, like, significant challenges in parenting while I grieved healthily. And so all of these different combinations of seasons also interplay with one another and our life goals and aspirations affect our seasons, and I've mentioned this list. That could go on and on, and you know when we recognize our seasons and how they overlap and interplay. It helps us to stay focused and clear in our life. It helps us to know and understand this too shall pass and what we can do to embrace and flourish in a season.

Marijanel: 16:49

I mentioned in last episode how I am really looking to flourish as an empty nester. It's a season that came and crept up on me way too soon. I don't feel ready, and yet I know that other empty nesters that I know have a very fulfilling life doing things that they haven't been able to do since pre-children, and I think about that and need to do some rediscovering, and so I'm looking to embrace what the treasures that I can from the season that I'm in and that's something that I want to lead us all through here on the Marijanel Show is really, really getting the most out of the season that you're in? Can you think of the positive aspects of the season that you're in, even if it's a challenging season?

Marijanel: 17:38

Thank you for tuning in to today's Marijanel Show. You know where to find me. All of my links are below. In closing, don't forget, put in your order for weight darling weight on Amazon. You'll find the links below, or type in my name M-A-R-I-J-A-N-E-L. Night as in night and shining armor Marijanel Knight right into Amazon and you'll find weight darling weight to read to the children in your life. You're gonna love it. You can also support the show on the buy me a coffee link, where you can make a donation Until next time. Live whole and creative.