Globally, < we are experiencing the birth pains of a momentous cultural shift, and for most of us this is a difficult time. However, inherent in this evolutionary leap are challenges and opportunities that could enable us to attain new dimensions of being, with a previously unknown human capacity for wisdom and selflessness emerging. Becoming change-fluent is no easy thing, and adapting to change, even change we seek, can be extremely challenging, because as we struggle to keep pace with altering circumstances and their attendant required responses, our adaptive resources like energy and mental acuity are tested to the limit. The rapid changes that are taking place within our time mean that many of us are living and working at the outer reaches of our adaptive range. Over a prolonged period this can result in fatigue and exhaustion of our adaptive resources. At this point we may begin to exhibit clear stress signals such as anti-adaptive behaviour, reduced morale and motivation, impaired performance and productivity, work absenteeism and even diseases of adaptation. An important coping mechanism would be to establish our homes, offices and communities as stability zones where we can live and work within structures of peace, harmony and order. Those of us who embrace the evolutionary flow are likely to find ourselves increasingly out-of-step with those who resist it, with controlling entities trying to increase dominance and punishment for a time as they feel their power waning. Communication difficulties and interpersonal conflict are therefore to be expected, with relationships changing, and in extreme cases, even irreparably breaking down. This, however, is a pathway to a different way of being, thinking, feeling.

A lesson for this period, therefore, is not to hold onto what has been, but to make space for what is to come. And as security structures fall away, there is a growing realisation that the only true security is that which is found within, with strength being developed layer by layer as each test of our innate resilience and resourcefulness is passed, and new ones embraced.