Stress and Change

Life keeps changing. In fact, without some change, we would be much more dead than alive!
(If you would like some relaxing music as you read, just press play below.)




Yet, change is also stressful.

Barbara De Angelis, in her excellent book, "Secrets About Life Every Woman Should Know" makes the point with a story about a woman who was seeing a therapist. They had great discussions, the woman explored her life in great depth. The therapist one day asked her what changes she had made. The woman said she had not made any. The therapist asked why she kept coming to therapy. The woman replied: " Because I'm into personal growth and working on myself....But I never said anything about actually wanting to change...."

This week I had a small experience of how that resistance operates in my own life. I arrived at the local train station just in time to catch my morning train. For months now they have been landscaping the surroundings of the station. Passengers have had to use a side entrance gate, and for me this has been quite convenient as, once I am through the gate, I am on the right platform.

One morning, I arrived at the gate to be told that we could not use the gate. Now we had to use the newly landscaped path. A sudden and inconvenient change, as this path meandered to and fro for about 300 extra yards...and on this occasion that meant missing my train.

Apart from the momentary annoyance of this, I was aware of how much I did not want to have to use a different path. This minor disruption to an established habit was a jolt, and I mentally resisted- the inconsiderateness of giving us passengers no warning!... Just how much stress this small change caused!

I said a few words to the "Customer Service Agents" about this inconvenience and the response was unhelpful to say the least. So I had a choice...get more stressed and angry, dwell on the issue for the whole journey and allow it to spoil my day? Perhaps even miss the next train? That was a definite possibility!

So how did I deal with it? It was a simple 3 step process which went like this-

1 I gave myself permission to feel what I was really feeling, for a relatively short period of time, and to express that to myself

2 I asked myself, Is it REALLY that important in the grand scheme of things? A psychologist would call it cognitive restructuring!

3 As soon as possible, I started to "soothe" myself with thoughts like- you can write a letter if you want, or call the customer complaints line. The message here was "Your feelings matter and I will take care of you."

So there you have it, a "first aid for minor stress" process, for more wellbeing, less stress.