Soul Sustenance

Accept Change, Don’t Resist It (Part 1) 

Change resistance or the inability to adopt to change is the most common reason for the life stresses that all of us are faced with. There used to be a time when change was not so sudden as it is now, but modern lifestyles have made change so sudden that we have reached a point where change resistance has almost become like a syndrome or illness. There was once a businessman named Mr. Rai (name changed), who was very successful in everything he did, whether it be his profession, relationships, earning wealth, earning a name for himself and with a superb personality. It was all great going until one day came when suddenly the government’s policies bought the stock market crashing down and his company, which he headed – its stocks (shares) took a dip and at the same time the fall in his professional stature saw an egoistic life partner turn away from him out of dissatisfaction. These two downs in his life saw his self esteem nosedive (fall down) to its lowest. Life was not the same again. His teenaged children developed bad habits because of a rocked marriage and Mr. Rai was struggling with the sudden changes in his life so much that he took to drinking excessively and even resort to gambling, causing emotional instability and depression. 

This can happen to any of us, a sudden change of fortunes, where suddenly one single negative event, only a single change, can rock your life boat and cause it to become unstable in the life ocean and even sink. What should have Mr. Rai done so that he could have prevented a downslide in his fortunes – from extremely successful, one of the wealthiest and the very best to be seen as unsuccessful. A change of perception you would say. That’s what all self-help books talk about. But how? And here we also throw light on the golden principle of acceptance, which follows the change of perception and also cannot take place without the perception change and is an opposite emotion than the one which we commonly experience – that of resistance, when faced with a difficult situation. 

(To be continued tomorrow …)