Change.
So much has changed in many of our lives. Moving. Illness. Changed bodies. Children leaving home. Children being born. Schedules upended. New treatments. A significant relationship that is shifting.
Change is sometimes threatening to us. It takes away the ‘known’. We like the known of routines. Routine can be our security and ‘change’ may upset our routine, our known and familiar way of operating. Even small change can be incredibly unsettling. We have to park in a different location. The doctor’s office routine is altered. Change thrusts us into something that challenges our comfort zones.
We all have so much change in our lives. We have that commonality … however, it can look different for each of us. The way you are dealing with change may be working well for you or you may be searching for ways to better handle change.
It is normal to find yourself resisting change. However, doing so is like trying to stop a wave from coming onto shore. Resisting change in your life wastes valuable energy.
When dealing with cancer, we come to understand how precious our energy is…and how we need to use our energy wisely. It takes us a while to ‘get’ that. Sometimes, we are more likely to focus on what we’ve lost to change, than on the new understandings and opportunities that change has offered us.
So, friends, pay attention this week to the new opportunities and understandings about yourself and your world that change has created. They will be there.
A frustrating, often unwelcome, but true bit of advice is “this too shall pass”. It will. But while waiting for it to pass, it’s up to you how you use your time. You may not be able to change your immediate situation, but you can change how you react. Your reaction and your next step are always in your power.
The trick? Pausing long enough to realize it. Acting on impulse will just trigger you and probably send you spinning into old patterns. If you can, stop and breathe. Focus on the five senses and let them pull you out of your head (out of your emotions) and back into the sanity of the ground, the earth, the air and sounds around you.
Lucretia Hurley-Browning, MDiv, MS, is a guest writer whose recent background includes Chaplain of Abramson Cancer Center at Pennsylvania Hospital and the Director of Juniper Tree Counseling Center. She is a therapist and ordained United Methodist Minister. Currently she is a writer by day, a reader by night, and is passionate about living life meaningfully with a good dose of fun.