Can I change? Yes, you can.

"What's on your mind?"

A simple enough question - one I often take for granted. When I'm sitting with a friend enjoying a catch-up over a cup of coffee it's a great way to reconnect and get a better sense of what's been happening in their world. After the past few years, I now recognize how important (and valuable) this question can be.

Three years ago this month, the world was thrown into the great unknown. A series of unprecedented and unexpected changes were thrust upon us all. Our health, safety, and sense of solid ground were challenged. It wasn't easy. After a few turbulent months of reorientation, things started to change. A staggering amount of adaptation, resiliency, and courage helped us arise from the ashes, putting a new spin on situations and circumstances that were far from optimal.

At every layer of our lives, we were shifted, and things haven't been the same since. "Zoom" became more than just a word to describe a fast-moving vehicle - it became a household name and a portal to a new way of connecting. The QR code, invented in 1994, made its splash onto the scene: according to Statista, there were over 75.8 million scans in 2021, and 2022 statistics were up over 400%. For some families, it was a struggle to survive; for others, it was a chance to redefine priorities and reclaim a sense of purpose and direction in the world. More than ever, it seems that our world is ripe for new ideas and full of inspiration to dream bigger, think bolder, and take risks.

Sometimes I want to ask the world the same question: "What's on your mind?" I often wonder what would happen if we could take the collective pulse of our society and what we might learn in the process.

Well, thanks to our handy friend, Google, now we can.

It may not be a secret that technology can track what we search for, but what might be interesting to note is what we can learn. Google Trends looks at the questions on our minds, the ways we are inspired, and the experiences that define us. In 2022, the question of the year was "Can I change?" Following 2021's question of the year, "Can I heal?", it may not come as a surprise that the current topic on the minds of many individuals and organizations has been one of change.

In their year-in-review video, Google shares "As the world reemerged, people searched for new ideas, new possibilities, and new ways forward."

(Watch the full video here.)

Change - and the unknown - can be scary. But with the right tools and strategies, change is something we can not only embrace but enjoy.

Being adequately resourced is one of the most critical aspects of navigating change. It’s tempting to think we need to turn outward to collect the tools we can use to support our process. But before looking for resources and tools we think we don’t have, we can look to the past to remind us of three major tools in our toolbox: Adaptability, Resilience, and Courage.

This "ARC" of tools gives us a starting point for navigating a path that isn’t often straight. If that's the case, our tools need to be flexible. These three tools—Adaptability, Resilience, and Courage—give us an “ARC” that allows us to move into change armed to take on whatever lies ahead.

Circumstances keep shifting and we keep adapting.

Barriers and roadblocks may (temporarily) hold us back, but we use each opportunity to get up, show up, and try again.

Even when things are uncertain and unknown, we take a step forward with courage.

If the last few years have shown us anything, it was that we are stronger than we knew and braver than we thought. Using tools and strategies, we can begin to construct our future. What lies ahead is a path that we can build, one step at a time.

Can we change?

Yes. We can, and we will.

Unprecedented Times

Let’s play a game, shall we? It’s called “Never Have I Ever.”

Never have I ever been alive during a global pandemic.

Never have I ever worried about getting sick because I left my house to go grocery shopping.

Never have I ever experienced a world where there just wasn’t any other news to report.

Never have I ever had to go over three weeks devoid of physical contact with another human being.

Never have I ever felt like I’m living in some sort of bad dream.

Are you out already? Oh. I am too.

Perhaps ironically, I played this game this weekend, with some friends over a FaceTime call while celebrating my 36th birthday. We were trying to be silly and take our minds off the fact that everything we’re dealing with is on one hand totally unbelievable, and on another one of the scariest occurrences of our lives. And on yet another (because right now I wouldn’t even flinch if you told me we actually have three hands) I think what we’re dealing right now is absolutely for a reason.

My "emotional receptors" are quite active: overly alert, acutely responsive, and firing easily these days. I've been struck recently about the levels of grief that accompany this pandemic - the barrage of losses we are experiencing at the moment - and how easy it becomes to just "deal with it" or "figure it out" without taking the time to honor and accept the devastating nature of so many of these losses and accompanying changes being thrust upon us.

My friend sent me an article on grief a number of weeks ago, one that actually labeled it as "Embodied Remembering" - for which I found an incredible resonance. We’re quick to forget that the body doesn’t lie, that we can’t hide what we are experiencing on a physical level, and that our bodies are no doubt in a state of total shock at the moment. Our parasympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight fear response) is probably in a state of near constant triggering for many of us; and for good reason. We’re dealing with inputs we’ve never dealt with before, at level that’s unimaginably heightened.

We are unbelievably resilient and quick to adapt: important survival skills for ourselves and the current state of the world. But often, we’re lacking in the tools to process our body’s state of pure shock right now. For some, our bodies may even be giving us pushback - in the form of pain, fatigue, or even physical anxiousness. Maybe you have tools to help adjust to these unprecedented times, or maybe not. If not, try to really “do” the things you’re doing throughout the day:

If you’re sitting, really sit. Feel the seat of a chair under you.

If you’re walking, feel that you have feet that are connected with the ground.

If you’re lying down, revel in that fact that even if it’s just for those moments, you don’t have to hold yourself up.

At the least, take a moment to consider that just remembering to breathe will help you pause and reconnect, to yourself, and to the universal life force all around us.

It’s never been more apparent that we are all so much more the same than we are different; the far-reaching effects of what we are dealing with don’t discriminate - we’ve all been fairly stopped in our tracks, and if we listen closely, something is being asked of us…

So…what’s being asked of you?