Life Changes in an Instant. We Don’t.

An apology to my clients over the past couple of weeks who have had to listen to me banging on about the powerful astrological times we are in and how this is the time to get clear on future goals. I realise that after all the work we do together in therapy session after therapy session, it might sound as though I have reduced everything to the position of the planets in the sky and the stage of the moon!

But I have to admit, it has been a pretty awesome few weeks astrologically. There has been the 888 Lionsgate portal, Barbault’s Basket, a solar eclipse and the Perseid meteor shower, all within a short period of time.

Whether or not you believe that the planets and stars have any influence over our lives, I find astrology interesting as a language for reflection. It gives us symbols and stories through which we can think about transition, endings, beginnings and the possibility of change.

And the theme that has really stayed with me is change. The idea of letting go of what no longer serves us. Clearing space for new opportunities. New ways of living. New possibilities. And perhaps most importantly, learning to trust that we don't always need to know exactly what comes next.

Nature doesn't seem to be in such a hurry

Over the past few weeks, I have found myself thinking about how differently change happens in nature compared with the way we often expect it to happen in our own lives.

When we watched the solar eclipse, I heard someone say "Is that it?" I completely understood the sentiment. Perhaps they were expecting the sky to suddenly turn completely black, the temperature to plummet and bats to come flying out of the trees, as though we had wandered into a Hollywood disaster movie. Instead, the light gradually changed. It was beautiful, but it wasn't dramatic in the way we might imagine a life-changing event should be.

Then there was the Perseid meteor shower. My children and I took pillows and duvets out into the garden and lay down to watch the sky. I think, somewhere in our minds, we were expecting something resembling the fireworks display we had watched on New Year's Eve. Instead, we saw a shooting star approximately every ten minutes. And actually, that was pretty impressive. My children stayed for two shooting stars and then gave up and went indoors. I stayed for seven. But those seven meteors appeared over several hours. They didn't arrive on demand. I couldn't make them happen by staring harder at the sky. I couldn't hurry them along. I simply had to wait. And that got me thinking.

In nature, things happen at their own pace.

Seeds don't become trees because we desperately want them to. The seasons don't change because we have become impatient with the current one. A meteor doesn't arrive because we have decided that now would be a good time. There is a rhythm to things. And yet we can find it idifficult to accept that same rhythm in ourselves.

Life, on the other hand, can change in an instant.

One moment, you are bobbing along quite happily, the next, everything changes; A health diagnosis; A car accident; A relationship ending; Losing a job; A bereavement; A phone call you weren't expecting; A conversation that changes the course of a relationship.

Sometimes the event itself takes only seconds. But psychologically, the process of adapting to what has happened can take months or years. And I think this is one of the strange contradictions of being human:

Our circumstances can change in an instant, but our minds and bodies don't necessarily change at the same speed.

We can receive the news that our relationship is over, but our attachment system hasn't received the memo. We can understand intellectually that something has changed, while emotionally still expecting things to be as they were yesterday. We know that we need to move forward whilst simultaneously grieving what we have lost. We can decide that we want to change a pattern of behaviour, and then feel frustrated when we find ourselves repeating it. This is where I think psychotherapy can be so valuable.

We often want the new before we've processed the old

When something in our lives stops working, there can be a strong temptation to immediately fill the void it has left;  New relationship, New job, New haircut, New identity, New goal, New version of ourselves. Sometimes that is exactly what we need, but sometimes we need something else first.

Space.

The space to acknowledge what has happened.

The space to grieve.

The space to be angry.

The space to feel lost.

The space to not know.

The space to understand what we have been carrying and why.

Therapy can provide some of that space. Somewhere we can slow down enough to notice what is actually happening inside us. Because when we are constantly trying to get to the next thing, we can miss the information contained in the transition itself.

The temptation to control the outcome

One of the things I notice repeatedly, both in therapy and in my own life, is how uncomfortable uncertainty can be. I want to know. Know it’ll be okay or what happens next. I want to influence the outcome if something is changing. Sometimes we become so focused on finding the answer that we lose contact with the present moment. We start trying to control an outcome that hasn't happened yet.

But there is a difference between taking responsibility for our lives and trying to control everything that happens within them.

We can make choices.

We can set boundaries.

We can seek help.

We can change our behaviour.

We can leave situations that are harmful to us.

We can work towards the life we want.

But there will always be things outside our control: Other people's choices, Unexpected events, Timing, Loss, Death, Change, Uncertainty. And perhaps part of psychological flexibility is learning to hold both things at once:

I can influence my life, without being able to control it completely.

What if we stopped demanding a timeline? Perhaps this is one of the reasons I have been so drawn to watching the sky lately. When you lie on a blanket and watch for a meteor, you can't force it. You can prepare for it. You can create the conditions to see it. You can make yourself available to the possibility. And then you wait. Maybe one comes in ten minutes. Maybe it takes twenty. Maybe you miss one because you looked away. Maybe you see seven. Maybe you see none. And strangely, there can be something freeing about that. Perhaps our lives could sometimes benefit from the same attitude.

Not passivity, Not giving up, Not sitting back and waiting for the universe to fix everything. But making space for possibility without demanding that possibility arrive on our schedule.  We can do the work and still accept that we don't know exactly when the results will come. We can plant the seed without digging it up every morning to check whether it has grown. We can make changes without immediately knowing what the new version of our life will look like. We can let go of something without having the replacement already waiting. And we can learn to tolerate the uncomfortable space in between.

The therapeutic process is often like this too. People come to therapy hoping for a breakthrough. Breakthroughs do happen. There can be those extraordinary moments when something suddenly makes sense — a connection is made, an old belief is recognised, a pattern becomes visible.

But much of therapy isn't like that. It can be quieter. A conversation. A realisation. A different response to an old trigger. Noticing something you didn't notice before. Pausing before reacting. Being able to tolerate a feeling that previously felt unbearable. Setting a boundary. Speaking to yourself with slightly more compassion. Recognising that an old coping strategy once protected you, even if it isn't serving you anymore. These changes can be so subtle that we don't always notice them happening.

Until one day we look back and realise:  I'm not where I used to be.

Perhaps that is how change often works. Not as one enormous transformation, but as hundreds of small moments that gradually alter the landscape of our lives. Maybe we don't need to know what comes next. The astrology of the past few weeks has given me a lovely metaphor for this.

There is something appealing about the idea of clearing space for a new timeline, a new way of living, a new chapter.

But perhaps the challenge is not simply to let go. Perhaps it is to let go without immediately needing to know what will replace what we have released. That can be difficult. We are creatures who like certainty. We like plans. We like maps. We like to know where we are going.

Sometimes the most important part of change is the space between the old and the new. The quiet moment after something ends, before we know what begins. And perhaps we don't have to rush to fill that space. We can inhabit it. We can notice what emerges. We can listen. We can wait. We can trust ourselves enough to know that we don't need every answer today. Because nature doesn't seem particularly concerned with our deadlines. The moon takes its time. The seasons take their time. Seeds take their time. And meteors arrive when they arrive. Maybe we can learn something from that.

Change can happen suddenly. Becoming takes time. And perhaps our job isn't always to hurry the process along. Sometimes it is simply to stay present, remain open, and give ourselves enough space to see what comes next.

And if you're lucky, perhaps you'll catch a shooting star along the way!