I’d like to continue and expand on the conversation about change that I only very briefly touched on last Friday.
Love is Love Fabric Collection Sky Full of Stars Quilt
There are lots of reasons we, as human beings, can be resistant to change. The amygdala, a part of our brain, interprets change as a threat and releases the hormones for fear, fight, or flight. So our initial reactions to change are our bodies working to protect us.
Love is Love Fabric Collection Sky Full of Stars Quilt
If left to my own devices, I could easily become a quilting hermit buried under a mountain of quilts who only forages out into the world to go to the grocery store. I know that’s not healthy, though, so I have established other routines to make sure that I stay healthy. I get up and move and stretch. I exercise by following YouTube videos (I’m currently enjoying working out with Sydney Cummings). I go for walks.
Love is Love Fabric Collection Sky Full of Stars Quilt
Now, you might know that my husband and I built a custom vehicle and traveled for 5 months in 2019 and we recently moved to the big island of Hawaii. You might be thinking, “You must embrace change! You have such an adventurous spirit!” The truth is, I was resistant to both of those ideas (and many other things, ha!) when we first discussed them. Resistance to change is built into us. We want to know if the change will benefit us, and without a lot of detail, it is very easy to see all the negatives that might be associated with a big change while thinking of all of the good that our current situation, or worldview, allows us.
Love is Love Fabric Collection Sky Full of Stars Quilt
Change can be especially difficult to accept or process when we have other stressors in our life (this sentence made me think of this recent comic by The Awkward Yeti and the idiom “the straw that broke the camel’s back”). When my husband was really sick in 2017, we started having the conversations that lead to our travel and move. But at the time, any time the conversations came up, I ended up scared, frustrated, angry, and all conversations pretty much ended with me in tears. I absolutely came to embrace both of these changes and am so grateful for the experiences and new perspectives they created; I just wasn’t sure that would be true when first presented with the ideas.
Love is Love Fabric Collection Sky Full of Stars Quilt
Life is much like piecing a quilt top; we get the opportunity to do a little bit each day. Some days we make big progress and are excited to try something new. Some days we pull out the seam ripper and undo work from the day before.
Thank you for being you and for being here; wherever you are in your journeys through life and in quilting. I suspect that I will keep thinking and meditating on change throughout my life, but especially so as I am going to be working to take this pieced quilt top and turn it into a finished quilt this week.
The Love is Love Pride Fabric Collection by Mathew Boudreaux (whom you may likely know as Mister Domestic) is available exclusively through Amazon.com and is printed by PBS Fabrics. All fabric shown in this post was provided by PBS Fabrics.
I was amazed to see how you were resisting change , how we see others is not always true to them. I could so easily be a hermit, if left to myself, and changes, they send me into despair. But life continues, we sold, we moved, we have the most wonderful new friends and neighbours, This week a huge change, for the better, as my first cataract surgery is on Thursday, friends ask am I scared, and I can say NO, after an angiogram and stent surgery this should be a breeze.
Great post! I was thinking about this concept recently as I try to get comfortable going back into the world after covid.
Change is always hard and gets harder! I think a lot about how things we look for us in the next few years as my husband is older than I. It is interesting to hear how hard to embrace and undertake some of what you did in the last few years. A little each day goes a long way to make a quilt, or a life story.
Change is hard. I always thought your “mobile” home trip was really cool, but I would never be brave enough to try something like that. Enjoy your stitching time, I really like how this quilt is coming together.
I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts about change and how you are sometimes resistant to it. As a mental health practitioner I especially agreed with what you wrote about the amygdala. I like how this Love is Love Sky Full of Stars quilt is coming together and look forward to seeing it after it’s quilted. Take care, Mary.
This is interesting, Yvonne, and what a surprise to learn that you are slow to embrace changes. I would never have guessed. I am finding at the moment that having got used to my tiny little Covid world and am very resistant to change my lockdown patterns. Not really from fear of the virus, but just because I’ve got used to this way of being. You’ve given me a lot to think about.