“I feel violent, like I’m dying, I feel broken, maybe I’m just breaking free,” Night Riots.  Ok, one more (tiny) piece on change that felt relevant because of what we talked about yesterday, how when we are scared we have to do it anyway.  Change CAN feel violent.  It’s the destruction of a former life, of what we knew/know and that truly is devastating to a degree—everything we knew is on the line and we have the potential to lose it.  It is truly a death because, as we learn in alchemy, the original no longer exists in the form it was; but as we ALSO learn in alchemy, the old exists within the new, just in different form.  Enduring any change/evolution is the shedding of skin we became comfortable in.  Once that skin starts getting tight, we see our growth is restricted so we have the choice to either stop growing and stay small, to suffocate because we grow within the confines, or to release the skin and step out into the world.  So change may be a death and it is a potentially violent process that breaks us, but at the end of it, no matter how raw we are, we are simply breaking free and stepping into all the possibilities that come with more space.