Are you a planner person? Or someone who made notes for their day?

I’m a planner person…or I was. I would sit down at about the middle of the month and fill my planner up with anything I already had that month and then add in where the days were empty. We, like many families were non stop. Two full time working parents, two children under three and two senior dogs (used to be 3). A three year old who was active…very active and we’re not surprised, she gets it from both mom and dad. So to fill up her time and use up her energy we had her in preschool and dance. All of the other days were running errands, time with friends and family, be it parties, birthdays, etc. And then scheduled family time. If we all had a day together, which did not happen often, you could be sure a day was scheduled full of fun activities to make memories and get the most out of time together.

But there was one problem in it all.

Although it was our life. The only way we knew since we became this little family and even before (my husband and I were always “busy” people often working multiple jobs and other commitments). We were all tired.

We needed change. We wanted change.

And though more recently there were several life events that impacted our family that led us to this realization there was probably not too much we were actually going to do to change it until we were forced to.

Two weeks into being laid off after our state issued shelter in place orders, I loaded the girls in the car just to get out and grab some coffee. P was rushed, I could tell. She rushed to put on her shoes, her jacket, and even told me “come on mom we need to get going” and I realized that this girl in front of me, the vibrant, energetic, three year old only knew life with her parents as being rushed.

In that moment I decided that although I had no idea what the future held for us and I did not know how long our “new normal” would be our “normal”, I was going to slow down life for us. I was going to slow down life for these two little girls. We needed this change.

I would be lying if I said I am still not scared of the future. Anxious about the fact that really for what feels like the first time in my life I do not have control over much of it. Will I return to work? Where will it be? What will our schedule look like? We already know there are changes in our childcare and upcoming preschool routine. We still need to worry about our health. Keeping that of ourselves and others safe. It is all fear of the unknown.

Change has happened in our life and throughout the world quickly and unexpectedly. There was really no time to plan. To schedule ahead, “oh yes, here we go March 2020 let’s turn everyone’s lives upside down”.

Instead we all had to take our plans and just throw them up in the air to be caught someday in the future and when, no one really knows. Weddings, graduations, birthday parties, vacations, sporting events, concerts, shows; all cancelled, maybe postponed. Have you thought about some of your conversations you had just as recently as January. Who was going to see their fav. band finally? Who was getting ready to send out their wedding invitations and prepare final details for the big day? Who just got season tickets for their baseball team?

All things that we were in control of and able to plan and look forward to.

It is completely rational that when we experience change, especially change we had little to no control over, we experience fear. We experience anxiety. Just as I discussed in my previous article, Change; Becoming Comfortable with the Uncomfortable, change requires a mind shift. But what we can easily overlook is how much the change it self may have shifted our mind.

We were shaken out of our routine. Everything we knew so well that it became innate. It was how we reacted to each and every day. We went through the motions just to wake up and repeat the next day. It is natural then that regardless of whether we enjoyed life before or innately knew that it could use some change, when it did change without us having control of that, it caused fear, anxiety, sadness, and a whole other range of emotions.

How do we approach fear of change?

It might sound crazy but you have to embrace it. Accept it. Welcome it.

It will take that mind shift to retrain our brains that change isn’t always bad. It might feel uncomfortable, you might feel out of control, and you might be scared. But what if everything gets better? What if this was just what you needed? Own it!

Stop blaming others. Stop thinking what if? Stop fighting against accepting the change. Ask yourself what are you afraid of? What is the worst that can happen? Now ask yourself what is the BEST that can happen? What do I have control over now that I maybe never had control over before? Write it down. Share it with someone.

Through embracing and acknowledging the change you are experiencing you let go of the fear and you gain back the control you felt was loss. Now the change becomes something you can work with. Something that might just lead you to where you needed to be all along.

Come back next week as we begin to assess how we can make change work for us. In the meantime click here for a template to help you discover how fear of change has impacted your life.

Sources;

National Institute of Mental Health, https://www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml

National Alliance of Mental Illness, https://www.nami.org/Home