elegant aspirations

One hot day in mid-August, I was riding an ex-racehorse across pristine meadows high in the hills of Upstate New York. It was a blissful moment, but danger loomed. We galloped over the brow of a hill straight into newly dug woodchuck holes. The poor horse stumbled, catapulting me through the air. I bounced twice on my back before imploding on the hard ground with a sickening thud, like an ill-fated space shuttle. Even before I hit the ground, I knew instinctively I had been stopped in my tracks.

Blessedly, the horse was unscathed except for a scuffed nose. As he nuzzled my face, I wiggled my toes, assessing the damage. Thankfully, I could move them, but getting to my feet was another matter altogether. As I lay squinting against the scorching sun, I began to lose my bearings as the mysterious sounds of the meadow enveloped me. With Turkey Vultures freewheeling the thermals of the brilliant blue sky directly overhead, I knew that something or somebody was trying to get my attention. Just what it was, I didn’t yet know. What I did know was that this was what life-altering change looked like up close and personal. What happened next was totally unexpected and indeed changed my life forever, but more on that later.

There’s nothing unique about dealing with change. Change is a fact of life. Change is inevitable. Change is constant. Nothing remains the same. Every hour, every minute, every second is different from anything that came before. Despite its inevitability, however, how we feel about change is profoundly complicated. We long for change; we dread change; and we are rarely at peace with it.

As the first generation for whom rapid radical change, both globally and personally, has become the norm, our lives are constantly being transformed in many ways: personally, socially, economically, environmentally, and spiritually. And the pace is only accelerating, so how well we can adapt to our changing circumstances is one of today’s greatest challenges.

We have many opinions about what’s changed or is changing, with a propensity to label things as either good or bad. And even if we long for things to change, that doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t fear it, because change, welcome or not, disrupts the status quo. What it boils down to is that, mainly, the change we desire is on our terms, meaning that we want to avoid any disruption or discomfort and for things to remain pretty much the same, only get better! And indeed, sometimes things do work out this way – like landing a dream job in your favorite neighborhood, let’s say – but usually change is more complicated and messier than that, particularly in unprecedented times such as the ones we are living in.  

When you think about how change affects you, do you tend to focus on external changes - meaning what’s happened or is happening to you? Mostly that’s where we focus. Something will change to “derail” us, or something will change to “save” us. This, however, is only a fraction of the story. Change is considerably more nuanced than simply what goes on outside.

Take this, for example: you wake up feeling pretty good. Then you check your email and get disturbing news. Your spirits sink, and your world goes from sunny to dark. A short while later, you receive a call that fills you with joy. The clouds disappear, life is sunny again, and all that seemed impossible earlier is now possible, and all is right with the world.

We pay so much attention to what’s going on externally; we don’t necessarily consider what’s happening on our mental rollercoaster. This is a ride that never stops, where even within a few minutes, dizzying changes affect our minds, bodies, and spirits.

As you can see, the way you judge external events has a profound effect on your well-being. But there’s even more to it than that. It’s not just our reaction to external events as they happen; it’s also the effects of our continual stream of mental chatter. 

Various studies show that most of our thinking, often estimated between 80% and a staggering 90%, is involuntary, repetitive, or irrelevant to the present moment. The amount of energy we expend on the superfluous is simply phenomenal. Each thought has an energetic component that downloads into every cell of our body, creating continuous metabolic changes.

Here’s a simple exercise you can try, which I often use to check in on how my inner voice affects my well-being. First, make sure you’re alone (I often do this when I’m driving), and then focus all your attention on the thoughts as they pop into your head. Have no agenda; just observe what comes up spontaneously, then speak it out loud. I am always astonished by the speed and seemingly random nature, most of it negative, of what comes up and how it makes me feel: past hurts; future concerns; fragments of songs; rehashed arguments; regrets; political outrage, and on and on and on.

One thing we can be certain of is that no matter whether we consider it good or bad, there’s no escaping change. Mainly, you have little to no control over external events; your focus must be on how you respond to change. This is the only aspect of change over which you have some control, and to achieve it, you need to work on yourself more and worry less about external happenings.

What these unprecedented times require of us is what I call a “durable adaptability” - a mindset and framework that helps reduce the fear and turn change into an ally. Durable adaptability has many components and is fundamental to the Living With Inner Elegance Initiative, but here are three that are particularly relevant to my accident.

INTEGRITY: Often the “mask” we wear to be accepted and approved of by others bears little resemblance to who we are in private. The more you overidentify with this version of yourself, the more alienated you become from who you really are. Not knowing yourself compromises your ability to navigate change effectively because you’re operating from a place of weakness, because it’s not who you really are. Conducting yourself and your affairs in accordance with your values and principles gives you backbone and a strong sense of self, so external changes beyond your control have less negative influence on your well-being, and you have the belief in yourself to adapt to what’s next.

FACE YOUR FEARS: When things change in ways we don’t like, we often avoid facing it for as long as we can. When you keep putting something unpleasant off, you inadvertently give what is disturbing you far more power over you than the original situation. Avoidance means being stuck with the problem because resisting change means you miss out on the events and solutions that present themselves when you trust and let go. By not facing your fears, you compromise your durability and limit your adaptability.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PAINLESS LIFE: We live in a world where the quest for happiness and comfort has become the Holy Grail, a mythology constantly exploited by the marketplace. This mindset makes you fragile because pain is a part of life. When change presents pain and discomfort, it feels even more devastating than it needs to be because it wasn’t meant to be this way or to happen to you. Looking for meaning in life is so much more empowering than pain avoidance and pursuing happiness for its own sake. Meaning makes any suffering you experience due to life changes more bearable and can even be transformative, and this brings me back to that fateful day in August many years ago…

Many hours after my fall, and a long, arduous crawl to the road, I was rescued by paramedics and taken to the ER. It turned out that I had broken my back. I was injured enough to get my attention but not so badly that it was catastrophic. Way more significantly, the doctor in charge gave me a reading list and resources with the words, “You need way more help than painkillers and therapy.” Prior to the accident, I had been a master of pain avoidance, adept at wearing the mask of acceptance, and really good at burying my fears. Somehow, the doctor had a sixth sense about this – a miraculous occurrence in and of itself. Over the next couple of decades, this list of inspirational books and teachers changed my life and became the foundation of The Living With Inner Elegance Initiative.

In the end, change is less about what happens to us, and more about how we choose to meet it. The world will continue to change, often in ways we can’t predict or control, but the power to adapt—to live with integrity, to face our fears, to find meaning even in discomfort—is always within reach. If you want change, you truly do have to change. The journey isn’t easy, and it isn’t always gentle, but it’s the only way to move from simply surviving life’s twists and turns to living a more peaceful and productive life. That’s how you build something new—not just out there, but deep within yourself.