When I was a young boy, change was something to be feared. Nobody around me liked change, it was something that you need to be on the lookout for. And you had to protect yourself from it.
Change was dangerous.
Funny thing is, in the following years I experienced so much change in my life that I quickly got convinced in the truth of the sayings “what you resist persist” and “fear and appear it”.
What is a change in life?
To put it simply, change is the only constant of our lives.
Everything around us and including us changes every single moment of our existence. Each and every cell in your body is completely renewed every 7 years. You are literary not the same person you were seven years ago.
Change is the one thing that we can count on to be always happening. It’s because of the one simple truth. If there was no change, life would not be able to exist.
Change needs to happen in order for the existence to be. If everything simply stood still, nothing would ever happen. Life would not happen.
And if we can somehow learn the easy way to accept change our lives would be so much easier.
Since we are talking about a change and because it is so broad subject, I would like to clarify in the beginning what exactly I will be talking about.
Let’s define it like this. Change is any major shift in your perspective, way of living, thinking, or anything else that has a major impact in your life.
Impact of change
Change happens every day, even if we are not aware of it. We measure it by the impact it has on our lives and our way of living.
The impact can be minor or major.
Minor impact changes are something we have learned to deal in our day-to-day lives without much trouble. We don’t even consider those situations as a “change”. The examples of minor impact changes could be traffic stops or accidents that delay our planned time or arrival, things that all of a sudden break and we are forced to repair them, sudden changes to your travel plans like canceled flights, lost bookings, postponed meetings, etc.
Major impact changes are ending a relationship, someone close to us dying, having an NDE (Near Death Experience), losing everything, finding out you have a major disease (illness) etc.
Most of us don’t have a problem dealing with minor impact situations. We quickly and sometimes unconsciously adapt and overcome them.
But the major impact changes are the ones that drive us nuts.
We do everything we can to protect ourselves from them. We develop subtle ways to prevent change in our lives like forming certain habits or holding on to our comfort zone.
And is change really a good thing or a bad thing, even if the impact is major?
I honestly don’t believe change is necessary a bad or even a good thing. Change just is.
It is the main and necessary ingredient for life, whether we like it or not. The greater the change, the greater the opportunity for growth.
But most of us really hate, or at least resist change. And we use all sorts of reasons to justify that.
What are the common reasons we hate change?
- we think it’s life threatening or dangerous
Fear of the unknown is a common fear. Somehow we believe we might not be able to cope with whatever comes up from the big black darkness towards which change is pushing us. This can also be connected with low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence.
I advise you to read my blog post on techniques to build self-confidence.
We simply need to realize (or remember) that we are quite powerful beings. Your abilities are the stuff that brought you right here were you are. And you know, this moment right here and right now, that was once the great unknown too.
- we are afraid of failure or making a wrong decision
Failure is not really a failure until you completely give up. Read my previously published article on failure for a greater understanding of what failure really is.
And another important question that appears is related to decisions. Is there such a thing as a wrong decision? I don’t believe anymore in the wrong decisions, because I know it’s like choosing a path. All paths ultimately lead to the same place, and every path you choose has its own pro’s and con’s. It’s up to you to align with what you would like to experience best, but don’t think that somehow you will stray from the path.
- we are afraid of what would other people say
You can recognize this in the fear of being criticized, disavowed or laughed at.
We all need to remember one important thing. Our lives are our own, and we get to make all the decisions we choose in order to learn something. We all want to become a better person and perhaps we also want to change the world for the better. We can only do that by singing our own song.
You will do yourself a big favor if you decide to stop seeking approval from outside of yourself.
- we are afraid of losing the things in which we invested ourselves
We spent so many years doing things a certain way, or being in certain relationships that it can be hard to simply decide to abandon all those years that you invested yourself in it. Perhaps we are even in pride about it.
But that is only because we are looking at those things in a possessive way
After all, if we abandon those “investments” than what does it say about you?
That’s really a silly argument to have. If you banged your head in the wall for 30 years and suddenly you realized you don’t have to do it anymore, would you drop that idea simply because you invested yourself so much in the banging? Does it mean it was all for nothing?
Of course not. You learned something. And you changed. You are allowed to change.
There is no such thing as too little or too late, you can always decide to change directions and start walking a different path.
If you are facing a relationship issue, I recommend you read my article about letting go of someone you love.
Now let’s talk about some ways to address change in our lives.
4 ways to approach and deal with change
1. accept that is inevitable part of life
I quickly came to realize that change is going to happen whether I like it or not.
It’s like Universe doesn’t really care how I stand with the subject of change.
What needs to happen simply happens.
As soon as I accepted this, I started to accept change in a much easier way, which finally led to accepting and addressing change with love. I learned to let go and love what is.
It also helped me develop a clear understanding that the only thing on which I have full control is how I react to situations that are happening in my life.
2. give yourself permission to be upset
With the increase in Law of Attraction teachings, suddenly it was no longer OK or acceptable to feel the negative feelings. So we started to negate and ignore them.
We pretend they are not there and we simply put a happy face on.
This is a misunderstanding because what we ignore and resist simply stays in our subconscious mind until the time comes to deal with it again.
Simply give yourself permission to feel what you feel in any given moment. That alone will help you release negativity, with a little time.
3. take it as a way of learning lessons in life
Like I said, I believe that there are no such thing as mistakes in life, there is only the process of learning.
When you decided as a young child that it could be funny to climb a tree and jump from branch to branch like a monkey, but ending up with your face in the dirt, would you say you made a mistake or learned something important about gravity and your physical abilities?:)
Life is how you look at it, there are no right or wrong ways, only what makes you happy or unhappy, and we decide that for ourselves.
4. focus on solution instead of problem
Every problem brings about a solution. Allow yourself the experience of looking back at your life with a smile, thinking about all the obstacles and situations you successfully dealt with. And then simply focus on the solution. It is there somewhere, guaranteed.
Conclusion
If change brings a lot of anxiety in you, I recommend you to read my article on anxiety attacks.
The sooner you accept that change is simply recognizing that there are certain parts of your life upon which you really don’t have any control, the sooner you will stop being upset about things happening in your life.
You will begin to let go the upset, instead of resisting the process. And letting go is not the same as being passive or giving up. Letting go is a higher form of acceptance, it is allowing the Universe to be as it is meant to be. It is allowing with unconditional Love.
So I invite you, let’s start embracing change with love.
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” ~ Alan Watts
Love,
S.
Images courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net