Thriving in times of change

At the core of emotional wellness is the ability to build our capacity to adjust and thrive during life transitions. No doubt you have experienced changes before. Perhaps they were fun and exciting. Or maybe they were painful or even tragic. Most of our lives are a mixture of both. Whichever they were, they were gifts because these experiences help us build resilience and capacity for change.

Fundamentally, change is when something new starts and or something old stops. When something that used to happened one way, starts happening in another (external). Sometimes you have control over change. It is something you have picked or put into motion. Other times, you don’t have control. Someone else makes a choice that directly impacts you or a set of circumstances emerge that you can control but must adjust to. Below you will find some additional definitions that will be central to the topic of change:

Transition: The psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation (internal). It’s a journey not an event. You do have control over how you manage your personal transitions.

Resilience: The ability to remain both flexible and strong in the midst of ambiguity and change. The better you become at building your resilience, the better you become at managing change and transitions.

Capacity: The maximum amount of change an individual can absorb. As you increase your resilience, you also increase your capacity.

Grief: The natural response to a sense of loss. In regard to change, it is often the feeling of losing your old sense of self or an old life that is no longer available to you. You can experience happiness and grief at the same time and during parenting we often do.

There are normal and predictable stages of change. When we understand that all stages or normal, we become more empowered to ride the wave and know that we will move through the stages to integration.

There is great power in normalizing the stages of change. Once we understand it is a natural and anticipated process we can begin to move to acceptance.