It Was All Too Much

Yet, as much as I love change, I’ve discovered that I have a tipping point of too much. Too much change. All at once. The tipping point when change is no longer fun or exciting. When I no longer love change.

In 2019 everything changed. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, yet this time was different. I got married, moved towns, went from living on my own to living with my husband, moved my clinic, started working from home, changed my last name…

All the change, all at once, was too much.

My body physically fell apart. I felt broken. Everything I knew was lost. Who I thought I was had crumbled.

This change was more than revamping or transitioning. I felt like I had lost my identity. I didn’t know who I was. Who I was supposed to be. I was now a wife, tethered to the man who was now my husband where we as two became one. I was now in a role as a Dutch wife approaching this role from my Polish roots. I became a stay at home business woman balancing being an entrepreneur and a homemaker.

The skills I had developed for embracing change no longer worked for this uncharted territory. Where I had once thrived on change of this magnitude, I found myself in resistance.

Growing up life was never stable, and instead of grasping on to something that didn’t exist, I learned to embrace the instability; I learned to love change, so much that I would force change to occur, creating an opportunity to transform who I was.

Was it that I loved change or that I didn’t love who I was?

Navigating change was easy when I could transform who I was. Any time I didn’t fully accept where I was or who I was, I would create external change.

Yet, here I was uncertain of my new identity, an identity I wasn’t expecting when I chose to be married.

I was caught off guard during this time. It had always been easy to navigate change, when the change was created out of boredom or unhappiness. This change came out of a choice for stability, something I never truly experienced and I wasn’t expecting it to be so jarring. I had always used my pain or sickness as a sign that something needed to change, not as a byproduct of change.

This experience wasn’t fun or as exciting as other major changes had been in my past. And it made me wonder, did I make a mistake?

This identity crisis became real when I had to sign my name for the first time. I was changing my drivers license and needed to create my signature within the defined red box. I had never signed Halinka Van Minnen before. I had absolutely no idea how that would look, yet could feel in the depths of my body an uncertainty; who is that person?

See, as a woman in my late 30’s I never practiced this new signature. Becoming a wife was a very practical decision, the next stage of life. It was organized, logical and very well thought out, but I never took a moment to really feel it. Feel what it would be to have this new identity. Seeing that I loved change, I jumped into this with both feet never giving it a second, or first, thought.

I learned that the change I chose and could anticipate was exciting. It stems from a need of variety and excitement adding some spice to life.

However, an unexpected change that is imposed on you can lead to resistance, pushing it away. I can kick and scream, running away, or I can see this as an opportunity.

An opportunity to heal; the constant change of life has led to autoimmune issues and has forced me to listen (more details to come in future issues).

An opportunity to surrender, releasing the illusion of control.

An opportunity to be anchored in the truth; the truth of who I am and where I get my worth.

In the end I have learned that who I am is constant no matter what the external change is.

Living this truth allows me to navigate any change, no matter what the source; and when I live that truth, there is no mistake.

without change life feels so dull.