“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”    Anias Nin

What is it about change that effects us in so many different ways? Is it fear that we don't know what's to come, what happens next, and do we get lost in ongoing ruminating?  Is it that we don't know how we're going to be able to handle what’s coming? Or maybe you are someone who looks forward to change, to creating something out of nothing?  Sometimes change means letting go of a situation that no longer works for us and we just look forward to the idea that “things will be different.”

However you relate to change, it is something that happens to all of us, every day, from the moment we are born. Our bodies change. Our understanding of the world changes. As we go through life and gain experience and knowledge, the ways in which we respond changes.

During the pandemic, I was part of the behavioral health team in a medical clinic. Most of my sessions were on the phone. The first week of the national shutdown, I remember speaking to someone who was really struggling, believing she could” hold on” as long as it was just a week or two. Four weeks later, her anxiety level was rising and she was experiencing depression for the first time in her life. As we spoke, she came to realize that the challenge for her was the need to know when things would get back to normal, so she could feel normal. I gently let her know that we would not be returning to the normal we knew before we were in the midst of the world's struggle with this very dangerous, fast moving, highly contagious virus. This journey the world was experiencing would change us.  “New normal” became a part of the national vocabulary.  It meant we had to adjust, learn to lean into what we knew, and, at times, respond to new information, even as that was rapidly changing.

Regardless of whether you believe yourself to be someone who has the ability to move through change, you have likely already lived through many unexpected situations that you did not recognize as part of your life learning.  We are so busy “getting through” tough times, we often miss what we have been taught.  We underestimate the value of the lessons life presents. 

When we are facing major changes in our lives - moving to a new city, graduating, retiring, losing a job, finding a new one, divorce, marriage, dealing with a major illness -  our bodies experience unbalancing – our familiar changes and we have to learn/create a new way. This “longing” for the familiar, for what was, is a form of grief.  And we can learn to move through it, whether it is the grief of life changing events or the loss of a loved one. Change happens. We need to learn how to identify the tools we already have and the ones we need.