D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
January
2009
The Change We Need
How to ride the waves of change without losing your footing.
By Joanie Connors
Everyone is talking about change, that we need change, that change is overdue. But do we really understand change? And once we start changing, do we know where it will lead us? What kind of future will change bring to us?
Change is unavoidable because it is a necessary condition for the systems of life. Everything that is alive changes continuously on every level. Flexibility and adaptability define youth, while rigidity and habit define aging. To stop changing is to die.
Change is also synonymous with movement, which is a necessity for health. Healthy people move their bodies vigorously and often. Healthy minds learn and explore new perspectives and avoid living in the past.
What's the problem? Why do some people groan when faced with change, while others refuse to change at all costs? Why do people fear trying new food or going to new places (unless they have chain restaurants, hotels and stores like home)? Where does this resistance come from?
One reason is that since our human and animal ancestors lived in such threatening environments, they learned to fear the unknown, which brought enemies and danger. Our ancestors had to fiercely guard their territory and hide in their caves in order to survive. When anything changed, they had less chance of surviving.
In our modern world, we have little reason to change our fear of change because it still brings discomfort and pain much of the time. Change requires so much effort — to let go of ruts, to adjust to new surroundings and find new ways to get our needs met.
There is more trial and error when experimenting with new behaviors and environments, and many people become frustrated with the errors and the continual adjusting needed to fit in with new foundations and new processes. Then, every mistake and every adjustment bring stress that further challenges our stability. A good example of this is when we take on a new responsibility at work: At first we feel insecure, falter, make stupid mistakes and have to do tasks over again. It takes determination to keep going to perfect our skills and do the job with confidence.
Change is especially experienced as negative when it overwhelms our physical and/or emotional stability. Each of us has a threshold of how much change we need and how much we can handle. If we have too little change, we seek change and diversity. If we have too much change, we can become overwhelmed and less able to function, as when we make stupid mistakes or suffer a meltdown because of an overwhelming workload.
The ideal amount of change is enough to test us, to make us use our bodies in new ways, exercise our problem-solving and coping skills, and/or to seek new ways of being or working with the environment around us. Change challenges us to physically and psychologically stretch our limits; the resulting strength and flexibility help us to face the new challenges that life may throw at us.
Trauma. Far too often, change becomes traumatic and may cause a shutdown of our nervous system known as shock. Loss of dear friends, family members, our own health and important places (homes, jobs) can throw us into traumatic change reactions, especially when the loss is unpredicted or violent. Recovery from traumatic change is more difficult, and some people are unable to find a way to adapt for months or years.
Deep, more fundamental, change is very stressful even when deliberate because you are losing much of your familiar internal and/or external territory. Deep changes are often necessary, especially when we have avoided change and are stuck in unhealthy ruts. Good examples of this include when we need to get out of stifling jobs, to stop ways of thinking that are making us sick, or to turn around an unhealthy lifestyle that is killing us. The changes required to turn around these kinds of situations are so deep and extremely difficult that many people feel lost and injured.
Stress-reaction chains. Whenever we push ourselves towards change, or are pushed by life, the pull away from our old patterns creates stress vibrations. These vibrations create a state of flux that is extremely unpleasant and often leads to negative emotions, especially fear, grief and anger. These negative emotions tend to come in waves that are so aversive they are hard to bear.
At first, the stress of change brings on intense waves of negative emotion, but with time the intensity of these waves diminishes. Individuals vary greatly, however, with some people having brief periods of flux (e.g. taking a few days to adjust to a new job) and some having vastly extended struggles with these waves (e.g. taking years to get over a bad romance). In psychology this tendency to overreact and make mountains out of molehills is known as neurosis.
Stress/negative emotion waves don't come just during periods of change; they also can occur before a change occurs or afterwards. We can dread or mourn change before it comes, such as in anticipatory grief when we contemplate a hurtful loss that is ahead. Coming upon reminders of what has been lost can retrigger stress waves, too. People who have trouble letting go can maintain negative emotion waves for decades, as when we mourn a disappointment from our childhood.
Ideally these stress waves push us to let go of the old and allow in new ways of being, thinking and relating that are more in sync with the environment. Sometimes, they can bring such instability and fear that we devolve into chaos. The direction we go after change depends on our internal stability, the skills we've developed, our resources and the harshness of the change.
There seems to be a class of people who are more sensitive to changes and have more and more intense stress waves. Poets, musicians and artists often have this sensitive personality type and react more acutely to the troubles around them. These intense emotional waves can make them have more difficulty in relationships and more mental illness, but this trait also gives them freedom from the mundane, access to greater creativity and openness to the beauty of the moment. People who are less sensitive are more emotionally stable, but often miss these breathtaking moments of clarity.
Fear is the problem. When you are in the throws of an intense stress vibration chain, the pain and chaos these waves bring may allow fear to take hold. Fear can overwhelm the mind and make positive thoughts and goals seem unattainable, so many people lose track and fall into negative behaviors and numbing strategies. They act out of fear.
Waves of negative emotion can also trigger other negative reaction sequences. In people with poor health, the stress of a change can lead to physical illness and ensuing waves of struggle with illness. People with unresolved trauma can fall back into traumatic reaction chains. People addicted to drama may kick off their drama sequences.
The key is to ride the waves of emotion and hold onto your center. The center is what is most important to you; your family, your values and beliefs, your goals and your spiritual beliefs are the most common centering concepts. Wealth, youth, looks and material things all come and go, but your center is always there unless you forget about it.
Regardless of how bad it gets, the stress waves of change will eventually calm back down. If you have reacted with fear, you may have to do some cleanup work from any self-destructiveness, blaming or other hurtful reactions to the waves of change. If you held to your goals and values or kept a positive outlook, you may come out of it relatively OK, and be able to benefit from the rewards that come with change.
Benefits of change. Change brings many benefits that ultimately reward those who choose it or stumble into it. Even those who fall into major trauma or self-destruction can eventually wake up to find their lives are improved by the changes that result:
- Change opens new opportunities. The new perspectives that come
with change allow you to see your environment in a new light. You will be
able to see the other sides of people's characters, new career and social
opportunities, and the possibilities of recreating yourself.
- Change allows new habits to form. Habits inevitably form with time
as we conform to familiar environments, and these habits become less useful
and close us up. Change dissolves some of these patterns, opening up new
space to play with, to try out new things, and to imagine new possibilities.
This allows us to have vision outside of our blinders, to see outside of
our walls.
- Change is toughening. Though change is stressful, it exercises
our emotional, relational and coping muscles, making us stronger. The more
we work to adjust to changes now, even small changes, the better we are able
to adapt to changes in the future, whether chosen, accidental or traumatic.
- Change keeps our brain sharp. Neuroscientists recommend regularly changing habitual approaches to doing things in order to keep our brains sharp. Changing perspectives forces our brains to create new neural pathways and to use brain cells that may not be currently active.
How to cope with change? As we encounter and choose change over our lifetimes, what can we do to make change a little easier to live with?
1. Have a positive attitude. Heart-surgery research has found that positive attitudes about surgery predict survival and longevity afterwards. Positive thinking is one of the most powerful tools for improving the quality of life, whether the changes we face are catastrophic (loss, financial loss), risky (surgery) or mundane (aging).
2. Look for open doors. Opportunities become available when we disconnect from any one place, person or behavior, because this leaves space for something new to happen. When one relationship ends, we can look for better relationships that allow for a harmony of needs. When a job ends, we can find one that better suits us, or fits with our development needs. When we change our living situation in any way, we can more easily change old habits to ones that are more vital.
3. Arrange for change to come in small steps. It is often overwhelming to try to change too much at once. For example, the intense work and adjustments that come with moving to another home can lead to emotional exhaustion if you don't learn to pace yourself and find help. Don't expect too much of yourself; make a plan that gives you room to breathe.
4. Take care of your body. You can restore balance more quickly when change becomes overwhelming if you take care of your physical needs. Take care of your body by getting enough rest, healthy food and hydration, because those will help your body survive the onslaught of stress hormones without getting sick. Self-care will also make it possible for your brain to think clearly and to see new possibilities that can get you out of old messes.
5. Get support. The support of family and friends is also an essential way to cope with high stress, as dozens of studies have found. Friends and family can protect you from new stressors, provide you with resources you need, guide your decisions and listen to your feelings. We need to share the burden by accepting help and asking for help in order to have a bridge out of our isolation.
Talking to loved ones is an important part of social support. Talking to others helps us to process the chaos of trying to cope with all the newness, to brainstorm new ways to cope and to see the bigger picture — how it all fits together. It is important that you not force yourself to talk before you are ready and that you talk to someone who is trustworthy and not likely to whip up the drama.
National change. The United States is about to go through some major changes in our government leadership and in our social fabric that promise to affect us all. Some of these changes are the result of the past catching up to us (the economy, the environment), and some will come from our asking for change by electing new leadership.
Just as our individual small-scale changes bring waves of stressful emotions, these large-scale changes will also be stressful as our greater social systems shift to work in new ways. It promises to be a bumpy ride.
These changes will be a test of who we are as a nation — the Real America. Can we really work together as a people rather than dissolve into conflict? Do we really have core values as a nation that will provide a center to guide us?
We talk a lot about peace, justice, individual rights and family values in this country. Whether we can discover what those really mean and stick to those during the roller-coaster ride of changes to come will determine how we come out of this time in our history.
Dr. Joanie Connors is a counseling psychologist who teaches at Western New Mexico University in Silver City. She specializes in relationship systems psychology. See her website at www.joanieconnors.com