Change, growth exciting

Lately, it seems that the subject of impermanence keeps coming up. First, I give credit to my therapist, who has been reading some books by a woman who is a Jewish Buddhist, and she talks a lot about impermanence. It is a huge concept in Buddhism.

We are, in fact, surrounded by all things impermanent: friendships come and go, people move out of town or even overseas, and, if you believe in the concept of a soul, we find that our very own bodies are impermanent vessels in which our souls live for 80 or so years and then move on.

The trick is to embrace impermanence rather than cling to things. I admit that there are a few things I would like to keep around. I want my cats with me, and there are some shoes I'd definitely like to keep near my impermanent body until my soul is done with it. A well-dressed impermanent body is a happy impermanent body, in my opinion.

Of course, when a person you love dies, you can curse impermanence all you want. There is a concept in yoga about "nonattachment." I had a conversation with a man once who felt that he, because of his belief in nonattachment, would not mourn the death of his father. I have a few thoughts on that, none of which I can publish. But we know that we all die. End of story. We mourn, we mourn more, we miss them on holidays and cry when certain songs come on the radio, but it is the way things are.

But as for the impermanence of other things, that is where things get fun and interesting. Say a friend you relied on becomes distant. You feel a loss, but you can choose to open yourself up to finding new friends. The world is full of people. I guarantee that there is at least one other person out there with whom you can talk.

Or say you aren't particularly happy where you are living. Move. Celebrate impermanence by packing up your stuff and chasing rainbows. The world is a big place, and it is worth seeing as much of it as you can. There are new experiences to be had, new people to meet, new cultures to embrace, and all of that is hard if you stick close to home, maintain the same routine you've had for 20 years and try to keep things exactly as they are. Even if you try, it can't be done. Things change. It is the nature of the world. Trying to hold on to things so tightly will only make you miserable, and your wardrobe most definitely will suffer for it.

The hardest thing, from what I'm told, is the loss of love. Yes, even love is sometimes — oftentimes — not forever. And it is so hard to move on and not cling to something that causes you pain, if it is something that is at least familiar. It feels easier to keep flogging the dead horse of a bad relationship than to stand tall on your own two feet, by yourself, and know that you can, successfully, live without a significant other. But (and I'm really killing you all with the metaphors, for which I apologize), it is usually smarter and easier to pull the Band-Aid off fast and hard, rather than peel it back, bit by bit, feeling it pull at each tiny leg hair the razor missed (or maybe you just haven't shaved in a while — that's OK, too), feeling it pull at your skin, for a much longer period of time.

I guess it is easy for me to say. I have a lot of nomad in me. Change doesn't bother me. Moving excites me. New people bring out the best in me. It doesn't mean I'm more highly evolved or more yogic, and it certainly doesn't make me a Jewish Buddhist. It just means that I learned young (thank you, Mom and Dad) that change is not a bad thing.

It is, in fact, the very way that everything that has ever been truly exciting in my life has happened. Impermanence. It almost sounds like a bad thing, when you hear it. But to grow, we have to change and accept that everything changes around us. I like it.

Suzanne Gannon is a yoga instructor in the Charleston area. Reach her at suzygannonyoga@yahoo.com.