FeedEmbracing Change
I see a lot of people struggle with change. Helping someone face they need to make a change or helping someone struggling with a change can be the focus or take up the majority of the time I spend doing therapy or life coaching. In life change is inevitable. We have all found ourselves struggling with it at one time or another. The most important thing to realize about any change is that we make it either better or worse for ourselves. Our mind can be our worst enemy when we start to fear change. Even when we are faced with exciting new changes, such as moving into a new house, we tend to let our worries or fears dampen our joy and excitement. We can allow ourselves to feed on stresses that arise which can stand in the way of our enjoyment. The fear we create may be realistic but is useless and even harmful to our ability to cope with or enjoy the new changes.
Facing difficult life changes can be daunting and consuming. It can prevent us from functioning as well as we need to handle the challenges that arise. This can be accompanied by feeling stuck or not moving to handle situations that happen. Finding ways to help ourselves remain fluid and move through the process of the change is important, and it starts with letting go of fear. All worries, anxieties and stresses are just fear based thoughts. We create our thoughts and therefore we create our worries, anxieties and stresses. We sometimes spend so much time focused on the “what ifs” that we waste time and energy that could have been spent in a productive healthy way.
Shifting our thoughts and feelings is an important coping skill that anyone can learn. Learning to focus on what we do have or the positives in an otherwise negative experience is tough but doable. In the psychology field we call this reframing but I really like calling it shifting. Research suggests one of the qualities that resilient people possess is the ability to focus on the positive. What they have versus what they don’t. What they want as the outcome versus what the possible bad outcome could be. Dr. Wayne Dyer has a great movie called “The Shift” that focuses on shifting our whole philosophy of living. Whether or not you are ready for that large of a task, just starting to shift your day to day thoughts is a step toward a new way of life. It helps us to be kinder and more compassionate with ourselves and others. We are not always so nice when we have allowed ourselves to be kicked into survival mode. So, next time you are faced with either a good or difficult life change, I challenge you to find the good within the situation or within in your life and focus on the outcome you would like to see. Working to shift your thoughts and feelings is much easier than fighting your fears.
Make it a good life!
Cathy Goulet
