Navigating Change with Ease:
How to Embrace the Unknown

Developing as a person means being willing to be open to change and to relax into it, knowing that change is an intrinsic part of life – that change is life itself.

We live in a hugely dynamic world. Sometimes change happens suddenly, e.g., with the onset of the pandemic, and sometimes change is slower paced and more difficult to discern. But things change – continuously and consistently – in each and every one of our lives: at work, at home, and all around us.

Most of Us Resist Change – Why is That?

I used to feel very fearful about change, and for many years, I lived with a constant undercurrent of anxiety. This was not only tiring, but it also held me back from living my life fully. Change can feel uncomfortable, scary, even. We like to hang on to what is known and familiar. We like to stay in our comfort zones because they’re safe, they give us security, and they protect us from failure and rejection – the very things many of us fear most.

It’s this fear of the unknown – fear of losing control, fear of falling apart, fear of losing our jobs, fear of losing status, fear of losing loved ones, fear of failure, fear of our own potential, and fear of rejection – that leads us to resist change. Yet change is an intrinsic part of life.

Resisting change takes effort and energy. It’s a bit like swimming against the stream. Resisting the flow of life is what causes us the most suffering.

There are broadly two tendencies with which we resist change:

1. Blocking
   When something difficult happens, e.g., a deadline, a conflict with a colleague, or a financial issue, we block the difficult emotions, such as anxiety, anger, frustration, or fear, by suppressing or pushing them away.
2. Overwhelm
   When a challenging situation arises, like a health issue or an important presentation at work, we go into over-thinking mode. We over-identify with it and become the challenge we are facing. As a result, we feel overwhelmed, and our world feels narrow. We become completely wrapped up in the difficulty in front of us.

What is Your Tendency towards Resisting Change?

It’s helpful to begin to notice what your tendency is to resist change. What are some of your typical behaviours you slip into to avoid facing up to what’s going on beneath the surface? It often happens automatically, and often before we know it, we’re on auto-pilot: we binge eat, drink, or watch Netflix, keep looking at our phones, work more than we should, or simply go to bed instead. We become stuck in our habitual and unhelpful ways of dealing with challenges and change.

It’s a paradox. When something unpleasant happens, we intuitively want to push it away. But it’s the very opposite that needs to happen. When we feel anxious or overwhelmed, and we want to feel calm and confident, we need to feel the emotion, i.e., the anxiety or fear, in the body, and turn towards it with kindness and care. It’s the very attitude that we would bring to a colleague, a loved one, or a friend who was having a tough time.

Attitude Matters

Being kind and caring doesn’t mean being nice and indulgent by letting ourselves off the hook. Neuroscience tells us that people who practice kindness to the self and others are more emotionally robust because they don’t go into negative thinking and self-deprecation when they make a mistake or encounter a stressful situation.

So, what and how we pay attention to something matters a very great deal because it creates our experience, our lives, and our reality. It is the attitude we choose to adopt towards the world: absent, present, open, curious, kind, detached, engaged, alienated, aversive, empathic, broad, narrow, or sustained.

Therefore, attention and our attitudes have the power to change whatever they meet for the better or worse.

The Conundrum of Life

On the one hand, we resist change to feel safe and secure in our comfort zones. On the other hand, we also want to thrive, have a purpose in life, grow, learn and develop, or make a contribution to something bigger than ourselves via our job, voluntary work, caring for someone, being a trustee for a charity, or raising a family.

How Does Change Happen?

When we understand how change happens, it becomes easier to relax into it and go with the flow of change. The secret to embracing change is practising self-kindness, curiosity, and open-heartedness while taking small steps. If we take steps which are too big too quickly, we get fearful, as you can see in the diagram below. This fear undermines our confidence, and we go into avoiding and resisting mode by finding excuses not to do something differently.

The first step is to face up to our fear of change. It’s normal and human. We need to reassure ourselves that we can do it and wisely choose supporters who will encourage us. This can help us move through the fear zone with confidence and courage.

The second step is to be open to learning, to adopt a learning mindset vs a failure mindset, and to see change or challenge as an opportunity to get interested in what you can learn about yourself, others, and the situation (whether it’s work or something else).

The third step is to be open to growth, which often happens organically once we’ve adapted a learning mindset and opened up to life. Opening up to life takes us into the flow of life. We begin to swim with the stream.