Today I want to write a little about change. I will describe the particularities of change, the types of changes and dive into my perspective on how to cope with changes in life.
How change shows up in our lives
Life is not a structured, linear line of events. Life happens, and change is part of every life story. How we deal with changes highly depends on our personality and coping mechanisms. For some people, adapting to change comes naturally, whereas others struggle to adapt. Some seek changes on purpose, others prefer stability.
As a fact, no one can avoid change. Change is all around and in us. In nature, the seasons, the weather, the regular circle of life. Our body changes over time, as do our skills and mindset. There are voluntary changes, and involuntary changes. Things around us change, and we change. Even when we expect or seek change, we might have a vision of how that change is supposed to be, feel like and look like. But change is not predictable. There is always a flexible, uncontrollable aspect to it. This makes us uncomfortable sometimes, especially in cases where we have particular expectations about how a change is about to influence our lives.
Types of changes
Voluntary changes include all changes that we actively or willingly seek. This can be a change of job or career, relocating to a new place or country, ending or starting a relationship, developing a new friendship or establishing a new circle of friends, a new hobby, … When we experience a loss of a job, a person, a beloved pet, a life dream or job change is not an option, it occurs without our consent. Changes affect our emotions, feelings, our thoughts, our interpretations of life events, our overall outlook on life. We might feel helpless, overwhelmed, numb, depressed. We might experience mixed emotions, get overrun by bitter-sweet memories or delightful nostalgia, relieving sadness, painful contentment. Mixed and sometimes contradicting emotions are particularly difficult to process. We often feel guilty or weird when experiencing them, think we should not feel a certain way, forbid ourselves feelings that we see as “shameful” or “undeserved”.
Making changes tangible and visible
When guiding people through life changes, I find it important to first let them express and explore what emotions a certain (or multiple) changes are provoking. Often we need a space to actually make these intangible things tangible, by making them more visible and communicable. When this is succeeded, a fragmentation or arrangement of these experiences can help to re-assess our thoughts and perceptions (and judgements), which is necessary to create shifts in perspective. Changing perspectives is a powerful way to overcome difficult experiences. However, changing perspectives does not work well in isolation. We need human connections for this.
Dealing with involuntary changes
Navigating life when confronted with sudden events that “change our lives” can be hard. Especially when these changes do not align with our values, wishes or desires, and when we do not only feel affected but forced into accepting that we can not change anything about that event. Change of political situations, war, hostile atmospheres, a harsh social climate, like work environments that change towards fast-paced or toxic conditions or challenging family dynamics can leave a big mark on us. Finding empowerment and meaning in those moments is a huge challenge, but an essential one. Establishing courage, energy, hope and faith, and remaining active are important to not get trapped into a victim mentality. This is of course so much easier said than done. That is why getting outside support is so crucial.
Common changes in people’s lives that are often overlooked
Something I noticed when working with clients is that they often seek my Mentoring and Counselling when confronted with some sort of lifestyle change. Either an anticipated and expected one, or one that originates in the past and they want to reflect on. These changes are usually connected to some sort of shift in identity. They can be rooted in peoples personal life or in their professional life, and are related to either themselves or others: A pregnancy, motherhood, fatherhood, separation or divorce, migration, death of a partner / friend / family member, change of work committments, a diagnosis, a chronic illness, an accident, a long-awaited job promotion, … These situations challenge our roles, our beliefs, our way of living.
The need for rituals and transition periods
Changes can develop gradually, and – when not fully understood and reflected on – slowly build up frustration, resentment, tension and dissatisfaction. In our modern society we do not have many established rituals or room for these phases of life transitions. Rituals and guided transitions help process and regulate emotions, and bring some sort of outside structure to the chaos, confusion and uncertainty that changes usually bring. I am not saying we have no rituals at all anymore, like weddings and anniversaries, funerals and gender reveal parties, but these happenings are rarely embedded into elaborate community practices. Often these events happen within certain bubbles within short time frames, without transitions between the happening and daily life. It seems like everyone is expected to deal with the “consequences” and “aftermath” of these events by themselves.
How therapeutic mentoring and counselling helps
An important part of my job as a Therapist, Mentor and Counsellor is to help people during these transitional phases. Often times I support my clients build a solid and helpful support system for them. I support them in sorting, rearranging and integrating a change (meaning the event that brought or causes or caused the change and the perceived version of the experience) into their individual life story in a way that empowers them. I bring in my outside perspective on the connection between the change(s), feelings and thoughts, and choose art-based and conversation-based interventions to foster self discovery and well-being.
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