DEALING WITH CHANGE // How to Cope with Changes in Your Life

Sam, change is going to happen whether we like it or not. Change is the one thing that is constant in life. It is the one thing that we can count on, but it's also the one thing that we probably dislike a lot of the time. What's going on? Welcome back to my channel. Obviously, there's a lot going on right now. Our office is moving in about five days. So I am here today packing up. I was just thinking about change and how it is just inevitable. We spend a lot of time trying to avoid it because it doesn't feel good. But it's something that we should probably address, because if we can learn to be flexible and we can learn how to deal with change in the best way possible, we lower our own risk of stress and depression and anxiety because we learn to be more adaptable and flexible. So I want to talk about change, but I think the one thing we need to say first. First is that your brain craves certainty. We like to know what is happening. We like answers. So when change is thrown at us, it can be difficult to deal with. Obviously, in terms of this office, we knew we were moving. We knew this was going on. We had time to prepare, see the new office, discuss plans. We were all part of the process and the planning and everything, which was great. But it's still going to bring about some challenges and some changes. So. So whether it's change that you know is coming or change that you had no idea was coming and it just kind of blindsided you, if you can learn how to be adaptable and flexible and manage change in the best way possible and cope with change, you're going to lower your own risk, like I said, for depression and anxiety and stress in general, because change can bring about a lot of problems for people. So we want to talk about it, but I just want to acknowledge that we crave certainty. So if you struggle with change, it's okay. I see it a lot. It's kind of expected. Because of how our brains work. We're not really designed to enjoy change and celebrate it, although we can train ourselves to do that. We can learn how to be more flexible, but it's not necessarily how we're wired. So if you struggle with change, it's totally okay. And we want to figure out how to best address that and give you some techniques so that you can be more flexible. Whether you see change coming or whether it's something that just blindsides you and comes out of nowhere and you have to figure out how to deal with it in the moment. One Other thing I want to point out too is that we spend a lot of energy avoiding change. We will spend a lot of energy, like in a relationship. Even though we might know that friend or that partner isn't good for us, we might spend more time in that relationship because we're more afraid of the unknown, of, of breaking up with that person or not being with that person than we are of the predictability that this person is just who they are. We might not like it, but we stay there because the change scares us more. The unpredictability of the future or the unknown subconsciously stresses us out more than actually saying, hey, this person isn't good for me, I'm just going to break up with them. This is why we stay in situations or relationships or whatever when we no, deep down it's not good for us. But we stay there because it's comfortable. Just because something is comfortable doesn't mean you necessarily like it. Just because something is comfortable doesn't mean you necessarily like it. We're often more afraid of the change and the unknown and the other possible things we might have to deal with if we leave that relationship or that environment. We spend a lot of time fighting against it, resisting and trying to avoid change. When if you could just learn how to embrace it and use your strengths and your personality to adapt and be more flexible, you'd probably be better off, less stressed out, and you'd be more willing to make those decisions and make those changes for yourself because you know you can handle whatever is on the other side. But before we get into all that, let's finish up and get out of here. Welcome to my new office. Obviously we've undergone some change here. So super excited to be here. We've moved, it's official and now this is just where we'll be from now on. So pretty excited to share this space with you. Now let's get into it. Change and stress often go hand in hand because your brain craves certainty. It likes to know what is going on or what is going to happen. Your brain likes to recognize patterns. So based on past experiences or, or what it thinks is happening, it wants to be able to use patterns to predict things or have that certainty. So anytime there is uncertainty, it does create a little bit of a fear based response. So to counteract that fear based response or that anxiety, we try to mitigate it by giving ourselves certainty by not allowing change because it's uncomfortable and just staying in what we know or staying in that certain environment or that job or that relationship or that experience or whatever it is, because the unknown is scarier than just staying there and having the certainty of knowing what is going to happen. That's what our brains want us to do. We want to minimize the danger and mitigate that fear based response by seeking certainty. But that often comes out in resisting change or having a difficult time coping with changes. Because we don't want to experience change because it's scary or there's unknown and it's not certain. And your brain wants certainty. Being able to cope with change is resilience. And your resilience isn't cemented in stone. So if you have a hard time coping with change or being resilient when things happen or when change occurs in your life, it is something that can be worked on. Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly during difficult times. And I talk about resilience because it goes hand in hand with dealing with change and coping with change. Because your ability to be resilient will help you bounce back when something stresses you. If there's a loss, if there's a trigger or whatever is going on in your life or any kind of change. Your ability to be resilient or call on those skills, it is what is going to help you recover. So that you can return to quote, unquote normal or your daily life or anytime anything is thrown off that you're able to just recover and go back to living how you were living or living even better. Because your ability to be resilient is what is going to help you bounce back. Your ability to use your mental processes, your thoughts, your behaviors will help you protect yourself against the negative impacts of stress. So stress can produce all kinds of negative impacts. It can impact our sleep, our eating, our exercise, it can impact our relationships, it can impact so many things. So when we're dealing with change and we're feeling stressed and we don't have the coping in place, or we don't have solid skills of resilience, our inability to protect ourselves, our against those negative impacts of all that stress can have a short and long lasting impact on our well being, our emotions, our relationships and all of that. So we want to be able to use our thoughts and our feelings and our behaviors to help protect us against those negative impacts. And that's where coping skills and learning how to be resilient come in. In regards to therapy. Because we want to teach our clients to to be resilient, to deal with change, to not resist change, and to be able to cope with change because it is going to happen Whether we like it or not, one of the big things I always ask my clients if they're struggling with change is do you see change as a burden and a challenge, or do you see change as an opportunity to grow? It's not to say that their feelings aren't valid, that we just focus on their ability to cope, and we don't acknowledge the sadness or the frustration or the anger or the fear or anything else that they're feeling or anything else that's going on. That's all absolutely valid and it has to be acknowledged. It's important in learning how to cope and be resilient. But the question on the other end of acknowledging all those feelings and what that client is experiencing is do you see change as a burden or do you see it as an opportunity? Somebody's mindset, independent of their feelings, can determine how they're going to cope with the change that they're experiencing. Your perspective on change absolutely impacts how you cope and deal with change because it also gives you a sense of feeling of control. If you're seeing change as a burden or it's something that happens to you, we tend to feel very out of control, which then doesn't bode well for our ability to cope. But if we see it as, what can I learn here? How can I deal with this? What can I do? We feel more in control. Our minds say, okay, this might be difficult, but I got this, I can handle this. What do I need to learn to be able to handle it? Control absolutely has a factor in here. When we talk about your perception, perspective in regards to dealing with change, there's three simple things that I tend to teach when we talk about coping with change and dealing with change. And the first thing is obviously to talk about it. When we're experiencing things in our life, a lot of people tend to hold it in. They don't think about it, they don't process it, they don't journal about it because there's a lot of emotions there, or they think people might not understand or. Or they don't even want to be honest about what is really going on because it's too difficult to deal with, or they're trying to just resist the change. In general, processing through your thoughts about what's going on, your feelings about the change, what's happening in your life, your relationships, everything that's being impacted by whatever change you're experiencing helps us to figure out then what to do next. But we have to be honest about what's going on and what we're Feeling what we're thinking. Once we do that, then we can figure out the best possible ways to deal with change. Cope with what's happening, deal with any of the negative impacts of that stressor or whatever you might be experiencing, but without being honest, without processing it, without talking about it with somebody, is going to really inhibit your ability, ability to fully process, fully deal with it. And then those issues that you struggle with in regards to change will likely come up later because you've just kind of stuffed them down, or you haven't been honest with yourself, or you haven't validated your feelings. And then when something else happens in the future, those same feelings start to come up again and now they're there. And you have to decide if you're going to deal with them at that point or if you're going to continue to stuff them down. There's no change too big or too, too small to think that you need to talk to somebody. If you're struggling with something or if you're thinking about a change or a stressor longer than you wish you were thinking about it. And I know I say that a lot, but if something is on your mind, talk about it. It's on your mind for a reason. It's plaguing you for a reason. You're thinking about it. It's there. Get it out. Talk about it, Process it. The second thing I want to acknowledge when it comes to dealing with change is how you cope with stress is what is going to impact you. So if you become really stressed out and you stop sleeping, you start eating a bunch of junk food, you spend a lot of time around negative people and you might not even be realizing these things. These absolutely have an impact on your mood. So really think about what are my general ways of how I cope with stress when I'm stressed out or when something's happening. Do I just binge Netflix and try to ignore it? Do I not sleep? Do I sleep too much? Do I withdraw from people? Do I eat a bunch of junk food? Think about how you tend to cope with stress and everybody is different. But if there are some coping skills that cause you more harm than good or that aren't helping you actually deal with what is going on, you might want to evaluate your ability to cope. Because how you cope with stress is going to impact how you continue to deal with change and whatever's happening. And the third thing, kind of like I had said before, is evaluate your level of control. When there is change happening in our life, there are some things that we just can't control. If our company downsizes and we're laid off, we don't really have control over that. But if we absolutely fall apart, we do ourselves more harm than good. And again, it's not to say that you can't be sad and you can't be mad and there's not going to be all kinds of feelings if your company downsizes and lets you go. But your reaction and your ability to say, okay, this is out of my control. What is in my control? Your ability to ask those questions. Questions is what is going to help you move forward instead of staying in the woe is me or I just can't control anything. If you can't control the situation, look at what you can control. I can control how I'm eating, how I'm sleeping, who I'm spending my time with, what kinds of things I'm reading, maybe what I do next or the next job. I find all kinds of things. We have more control than we realize. We just might not be able to control the one thing that caused us a bunch of change. So acknowledge how you're feeling, but your reaction to whatever happened is what is going to determine what you do next. So talking about it, recognizing how you are impacted by stress or your ability to cope with stress, and then evaluating your level of control in circumstances of change or stress are three general things that people tend to overlook or they don't think about when they're figuring out how to cope better with change or how to deal with change. When there's change that has happened in your life in the past, what have you done? What kinds of things have you resorted to? What were your thoughts? How did you feel? How long did it take for you to bounce back or come out of that? Because change is the one thing in life that we are guaranteed. It is the one thing that is constant. So the more we fight against it, the more we resist it, the harder it's going to be for us to deal with it. If we can learn how to accept that change is going to happen whether we like it or not, and it's not to minimize all of the emotions that we feel when that change occurs, we are going to fare better when change comes and slaps us in the face, because a lot of times change happens and we don't even know it's coming. But whether or not we're aware, our ability to cope and talk and our perspective and our awareness about how we deal with change is going to help us bounce back. It's going to Help us be resilient and it's going to help us continue on in life and not stay stuck in. Why did this happen to me? There's so many things that go into dealing with change, but talk about it, know how you deal with stress and evaluating your level of self control are three big things that can help you move forward. Or they're gonna be the things that generally keep you stuck when change is happening or when you're dealing with something. One last thing I really want you to think about because I had said that our brain craves certainty and that change often elicits a fear based response because we want certainty. And then all of a sudden things are uncertain and our brain is like, what is happening? Alert, alert, alert. Oh my gosh, what is going on here? There's fear, there's fear of the unknown, there's fear, fear of the change and there's fear of what could happen. All of these things. But the one thing I also really want you to think about is what is it you're really afraid of? Are you afraid of having to do something different or step up to the plate or your life changing in a certain way? Because the uncertainty is such a big thing for our brains, we don't often even think about what am I really afraid afraid of here? Because your brain is craving this certainty. It's looking for patterns, it's looking to minimize the danger. It wants to know what's happening in the world around it. So if you aren't able to say, hold on, what am I really afraid of here? Did I just lose my job? And I'm afraid that I'm going to have to go out on interviews and what if people say no or I'm going to break up with this person? And what if nobody loves me ever again in my life? Whether or not those are real and true, those are the thoughts that stop us from accepting change and allowing ourselves to move forward. What is it deep down that you're really struggling with it? What is the worst case scenario? Then you can think about the best case scenario and then you can decide what your actions are to figure out what you need to do next. But just ask yourself, if you're struggling with some changes or there's something happening in your life and you're having to deal with the uncertainty, ask what am I really afraid of here?