Happy Birthday, Meli !


Baby, I hope you will always remember that you are my biggest treasure.

And that I will be by your side no matter what happens.

I love you to the moon and back.

Renewal - ABS Carnival Blog Post


I never thought I would use a power point slide that I have prepared for work here on my blog.

The one that I will use for this ABS Carnival post shows the change curve. This model was developed in the 1960s and it explains how people go through a grieving process and how we manage change in our lives. You cannot jump over a phase, you have to go through all of them – there are no short cuts. You can get stuck in the phases, and they can take longer or shorter depending how you manage change.

The concept explains that people are comfortable with situations they know, and if a drastic change occurs we tend to react shocked, though shortlived, in the beginning. We face a loss of productivity, and individuals that are usually strong and decisive seek direction and reassurance. We are afraid of the unknown. After this we tend to deny the situation, we focus on staying in the past – “everything is fine and we will get through somehow” or “ this is not really happening” or “this won’t affect me that bad”.
Anger and (re-) design represent the next stage. In this phase the change starts to become reality and we often look for a scapegoat. Lowest morale, anxiety and frustration are followed by isolation and apathy. We tend to focus on small issues and just keep going to mentally and emotionally survive.
At the end of the valley of tears, we start to feel more positive and enthusiastic as we start to find our new place in the new world. The change has been survived and new opportunities lie ahead. Acceptance, hope and trust are common feelings.
It depends on our general stability and experience with past changes how long we stay in each of the phases of the change curve.

I had to think about change a lot in the past two years. Basically in the past 10 years I was a real jet set business woman, never staying in the same location for more than 10 days. I lived at least half my life in the US, and I was not even impacted by 6 hours time changes anymore. Flights in business class with champagne, good red wine, movies and excellent food became more common than the frozen pizza at home.

Then I got pregnant and was waiting for the arrival of my pretty baby. While I was planning to continue my life in the same job, the grey suited guys from my company decided differently. They believed they knew better what I needed (“why don’t you stay at home and be happy that you will have a baby?”). So I got demoted, reporting to a guy that was put into my former role, that has no experience in my former position whatsoever.
Having Amelia made me think about what life really is about. And that we work to afford a life. And that we should do things we enjoy. So besides of my part time job and my baby, I decided to put my long lasting beading hobby into some more solid frames, and decided to open my own etsy store. It took a long time, but I am pleased to announce the opening of my etsy jewelry shop today. Go visit me here – www.etsy.com/shop/nickisreef - have a look at the few goodies I have in there (promise there will be more soon) and show me some love and treat yourself with a piece of handmade jewelry. I do not know where my etsy journey will take me, but for now I know it is part of my change process and it is definitely on the upturn side of things.

The change curve and the word renewal made me think about a caterpillar, preparing to make a cocoon. The caterpillar does not really know what will happen, not does he know he will be a butterfly at the end (or maybe a moth :) ). But he knows that change is happening. And if we believe in the fact that there are better days in front of us, we can have trust and be calm, because we know one day we will have wings to fly.

If you need wings to fly – go over to my etsy store and grab this "Silk caterpillar cocoon" necklace.