Can We Have A Manual Please?
If only change could come with a manual.
Recently, two of my co-workers were having a conversation near my cubicle, and I overheard one of them loudly say in frustration, “Everything is just changing!”
It made me wonder how changes in life can provoke stress, fear, and anxiety for many of us.
I think most of forget that the only constant is change, and even when it doesn’t have our attention, it’s still happening behind the scenes. We might not know it in the moment of, but change is taking place. It’s not until much later that we realize how much has changed, and often, are surprised by it.
In our lives, change can be unexpected or self-initiated. Either way, it’s not easy to experience.
Unexpected change comes without warning. It not only causes mental and physical tension, but at times can appear to uproot our lives completely.
For example, unexpected change can look like getting laid off, discovering a health issue, losing a loved one, and so on.
When we’ve adapted, set our day-to-day routine in stone, and found a comfort zone, unexpected change feels unbearable because we must re-adapt, adjust our routine, and locate a new comfort zone. We go through a great deal of pain and suffering to face unexpected change on demand.
Out of unexpected change and self-initiated change, I’m sure most of us despise having to deal with unexpected change more because it’s uncertain, and not by choice.
Self-initiated change occurs when we notice an area of our lives we’d like to improve, which can also, at times, provoke mental tension and physical tension.
For example, self-initiated change can look like practicing less screen time, exercising and eating healthier, starting a business, and so on.
It’s easy to decide that we want to make a change in life, but it’s still a difficult experience. This is because we’re stripping away from what we’ve adapted to, the routine we’ve set, and our comfort zone, even if it’s by choice. We’ll battle stress, fear, and anxiety as we navigate through withdrawals, setbacks, failures, and losses. But we wanted to go from one destination to another by choice, so the pain and suffering is there, but it isn’t as severe.
A lot of us don’t really think about the process of change and that might be why we experience mental and physical tension.
If only we could ask change to could come with a manual, right?
When we get hit with an unexpected change, we resist it and fixate on trying to get back to where we were and what we know. But if we accept and surrender to the unexpected change, we lead with an openness, which allows us to fully recognize what skills and tools we need to find and develop to successfully journey through the process—until we know what we need to know to reach where we’re meant to be.
When we decide to self-initiate a change, we fixate on the end goal, so we close ourselves off to what the process toward it may unfold. Often, self-initiated changes are short-lived because we ignore the journey. We just want to go one from destination to another. A single setback or withdrawal makes us wonder why we signed up for change, so we go back to where we were, simply to avoid stress, fear and anxiety.
It’s just as important to lead with openness when we self-initiate a change, so we can also find and develop the skills and tools needed to journey through the process.
Unfortunately, change doesn’t come with a manual, but living with flexibility is key, as it allows us to flow with the river compared to living with rigidness, which only sinks us to the bottom of the river like a rock.
With Love,
Jasmine