God Is Change: Trust, Impermanence, and Learning to Stay Present

What if trusting life doesn’t mean trusting that everything will become stable, coherent, or reassuring? In this episode, Vanessa explores change as both a spiritual and psychological problem: why we confuse trust with continuity, why change can feel like abandonment, and what it means to stay in relationship with reality as it keeps moving. Through Octavia Butler’s “God is Change,” Heraclitus, Buddhist impermanence, process theology, attachment theory, meaning-making research, and Jungian transformation, we look at the grief and freedom of releasing the fantasy that life’s job is to preserve the forms we love. Trust is not certainty that everything will work out; it is the willingness to remain present with what is real as it changes form.For educational purposes only. This isn’t therapy.Join the ICA Summit → https://www.vanessabennett.com/ica-summitReference Links:Octavia Butler — Parable of the Sower / EarthseedUse for: “God is Change,” Earthseed, and the idea that change is the central theological principle in Parable of the Sower.Link: https://www.octaviabutler.com/the-booksNote: Use this as the primary author/book reference for Octavia Butler and Parable of the Sower.Earthseed / “God Is Change”Use for: Earthseed’s core principle that God is Change and the related idea that God can be shaped.Link: https://godischange.org/shape-god/Note: Useful accessible reference for the Earthseed language. If quoting directly, confirm wording against the text of Parable of the Sower.Heraclitus — Flux / River FragmentUse for: Heraclitus’s idea that reality is in flux, often summarized through the river fragment.Link: https://iep.utm.edu/heraclit/Note: The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a reliable philosophy reference for Heraclitus and the doctrine of flux.Attachment Theory OverviewUse for: Secure attachment as a reliable base for exploration, regulation, and return.Link: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4085672/Note: Broad overview of attachment theory, including Bowlby and Ainsworth.Intolerance of UncertaintyUse for: Uncertainty as a transdiagnostic process associated with anxiety, worry, rigidity, avoidance, and distress.Link: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4204511/Note: Useful research review on intolerance of uncertainty and its role across anxiety and related conditions.Crystal Park — Meaning-Making After Stressful EventsUse for: Stressful events disrupting global beliefs/goals and the process of meaning-making after rupture.Link: http