In the past few years, we’ve been going through many changes: from the pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, and rising inflation, to coping with extreme weather events. On a more mundane level, have you ever gone to your supermarket and discovered that the marmalade’s no longer in the same familiar place and you can’t find the eggs? Supermarkets change their store layout to break our habit of taking the usual route every week, to entice us with other products. Although this may be good for the retailer, it can be confusing and frustrating for the shopper.
Change exists all around us, in the cycles of the seasons, the day and night as the earth orbits the sun, and the tides and lunar cycles of the moon. There’s change within our bodies: from the phases of life as we develop and grow older, each unique breath and heartbeat, and at a lower level, the 60 billion or so cells that are replaced in our bodies every day.
When we encounter a change in our lives it’s natural to feel a bit threatened by uncertainty; after all, evolution wired our brains to look out for threats in our environment. If the change is positive, then we may feel a sense of freedom and happiness. However, if the change triggers our threat response we can easily react automatically, feeling the impulse to avoid or resist the change. Without awareness, we tend to fall back on our automatic ways of coping from the past. We can also find ourselves identifying with negative beliefs and worrying thoughts as well as experiencing anxiety, fear, and anger about the change.
When we meet change, it can be useful to explore positive outcomes. When we reflect on the path our life has taken, the chances are that we’ll be able to find positive changes in direction that followed times of unwanted or difficult change.
Practising mindfulness is also about change. For instance, it can help us to break free of old habits and beliefs that limit or no longer serve us. We can become more aware of the subtle interplay between our thoughts, emotions, and sensations in our bodies. Mindfulness also allows us to shift from reacting automatically to responding skilfully with flexibility and openness. It’s also interesting that mindfulness research shows that the practice changes the way our brains are wired, which helps improve our emotional regulation and resilience.
Ways of using mindfulness to proactively help us work through change include:
- Fully accepting and embracing the reality of the change
- Working with emotions like fear, anxiety, and anger – allowing what we feel without automatically acting out the emotion, and bringing kindness and self-compassion to feelings of vulnerability about the change
- Seeing that all things, including emotions, arise play out and pass away, and what feels painful now will not last forever
- Not getting caught up in identifying with thoughts and feelings, knowing that we’re not our thoughts, or emotions as they come and go
- Anchoring ourselves in the peace, stability, and balance in our bodies, when everything else seems to be shifting and changing
The organisations we work in are often changing in response to a new strategy, or to reduce costs and improve efficiency. We may change jobs, roles, teams, organisations, or even careers. We may also have parallel changes going on in our personal lives. So how we work with change as it occurs in our lives can make a real difference to our resilience, health, happiness, and well-being.
Suggested weekly practice
- Notice things that are changing in your life, as well as the things that stay relatively constant.
- Embrace and accept the change as you anchor yourself in the body and senses while acknowledging both the pleasant and unpleasant aspects of the change with the same welcoming attitude.
- However negative the change may appear, see if you can explore some positive outcomes on the other side of the change.
Guided practice
- Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified, and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
- Play the first settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
- Then close your eyes while this meditation plays, to explore and experience a mindful approach to accepting and responding to change with flexibility and openness.
