Change

We all change. Yet change freaks us all out. Some fear change more than public speaking. It is the kind of amorphous issue we don't think about as it manifests itself cautiously in so many ways. Relationships start and end, you move, you get a new job or you lose someone that you love. Change can be bad or good and almost always causes stress. Stress of any magnitude can trigger the beast. We need to learn how to handle change so this does not happen, often.
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Change is an expansive term and it can apply to so many things. Perchance you're just moving to a new house or beginning a new job, or a sudden death happens in the family. Those type of events may seem black and white, and not necessarily identical but they all require an adjustment in the way you conduct your day to day life. These type of adjustments will cause stress and anxiety even they're positive. Negative changes can also yield positive results. Most people never know what they are going to get and therefore the reason we fear change. The trick is to cope without losing your mind and may only require an adjustment on your outlook and a little clue of surviving various circumstances. We need to know why our brains resist change and how we can do something to change that.
Let's say we define change as a modification to a person's environment, situation or mental/physical condition that can result in a challenging ones existing ideals.  A person has the tendency to determine how exactly their universe is supposed to work. If something happens in your individual bubble or to our own being that is contrary to the way we feel the world should be, we suddenly get our brush with change. 
In our daily routine lives, change comes in multiple forms. We all experience the pains of being thrown into puberty and then later the pains of becoming ancient through inevitable medical issues. I am getting ancient and oddly feel like puberty is striking again. People get married, switch careers multiple times, graduate from school, move across the country, we lose our parents or spouses, we get into accidents, we have children, they start school and sometimes we even achieve our dreams.Though we can regard a default emotion such as happiness or sadness to many of these broad examples, the event is not the only element that affects how we handle the good and bad of a change. 
The best thing to keep in mind is that there is a sequence between positive and negative so not all changes are easily summarized as bad or good. Other psychological components, such as temperament or mood, can affect how a person codifies a change within the positive/negative continuum. 
If we are confronted by an event that is inconsistent with our core beliefs, we all will feel some kind of anxiety or stress.  Change really should be easy. Our brain likes easy, simple so if there is any type of change in our life, it will send off an alert signal. The beast loves this alert as it allows it to attack with backup. If our mind runs into a roadblock, suddenly the information it trusted is broken down and it panics. We all know the beast loves to hit the panic button and as a result, we tend to act irrationally, often without realizing it. The earlier we learn something the harder we deal with changing it. That saying, " can't teach an old dog new tricks", bleeps through my mind a lot lately. Kids adjust much better to change since they don't have as much legacy material to overcome when confronted with change.  As we get older, our brains become less plastic and we encounter more issues processing changes as our paradigms are more rooted.  We get anxiety when our children start school for the first time, for me, it brings back my fears of the first day of school. My children were fearless starting. 

Our minds hate loss and unfortunately change involves loss. We invest emotionally and it becomes harder to change because we don't want to lose all the effort we already exerted. I can fully understand this type of change as I have had to deal with it numerous times and not very well. I tend to shut down or block out when a loss is the change in my universe. I think for the most part this is why I hoard items that I tell myself I am keeping because of the sentimental value of it. I have to force myself to get rid of stuff but have been doing better as I have recently donated six boxes.  

I am teaching myself to deal with change as I have had no other choice. The hardest part is to put optimistic outlook into practice as my anxiety tries to pull me back. I allow myself to cry, kick and scream then I start to seek out ways to make my new situation work for me. If I allow myself to keep fixating on what I lost or what changed, it prevents me from experiencing the good things that my new circumstance can bring me. I process my emotional pain and fear into a list. Pro vs Cons helps me see that I have the potential for renewed hope in my future and the possibility of happiness, even with change. Learning to shift gears in the midst of anxiety and stress is hard work but worth it. I would not be typing this blog if I did not push through the fear of change and the unknown. So my advice is to allow change to challenge you, not break you. 

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