So, the thing about playing the long game is…it’s LONG.

This may be a particular challenge for those of us who grew up in circumstances what felt threatening to varying degrees. We may feel hard-wired to be fearful of change and to sniff it out with avid, vigilant energy.

When I was very young and trying to understand changes in my mother wrought by alcohol, I called it ‘talking funny.’ I listened closely, and the slightest shift in her voice came to carry dread. Oh, I knew what was coming –or thought I did.

The game of life that I learned through long repetition was about trying to anticipate and either avoid or manage things that other people were doing. Change was to be feared and stopped. It’s what victims want — to have control over things they are powerless over but impacted by. An ingrained habit — it persists through time, even when one has grown years away from that place where victimization was actually happening.

So change, under certain circumstances, is just a scary thing. In reality, in the present, there are very few situations where change needs to be scary. But there are ripples and echoes from the past that infect the present…and in those circumstances, reacting to change becomes just a knee-jerk thing. I’ve had many sleepless nights, ruminating and reacting to changes as if they were emergencies. They have not been, but my lizard brain still thinks so.

Playing the long game means breathing more and reacting less. AND it means that the ‘opportunities’ to react don’t go away. Change continues to happen.

Sometimes it happens when you think you ‘deserve’ a rest. But the long game means hanging in there and letting things just be — maybe even welcoming the challenge to stretch a little bit more.

Playing the long game means you know you’re okay now, no matter what…