Change Happens

These days, sometimes it feels like I’m just exuding frustration from my every pore. While I am well aware that I’m not a paragon of acceptance when it comes to change, I’ve seen and experienced a great deal of resistance towards change over the past few weeks.

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Change itself can create a surge of feelings ranging anywhere from excitement to fear (as I discussed in my post “Big Dreams“). Often, these feelings co-occur, or even meld. They can become so intertwined that it’s difficult to tell them apart, and we allow the negative feelings to overwhelm any possible positive feelings. After all, negativity can be an easy and extremely attractive default.

Let me be clear. Every single emotion you may feel in the face of change is valid. Sometimes it’s impossible not to feel. Sometimes it’s easier to shut those feelings off and pretend they don’t exist and that they aren’t the reason you’re so resistant to the change. Whatever the feelings and however deep you’ve buried them, those feelings are still there, they are valid, and valid emotions need to be felt. Not addressing those emotions, pretending that they’re not influencing decisions you make, becomes a dangerous game.

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I have often found that when I’m finally able to accurately identify the source of my anxiety, or my anger, or my tears, those around me are often able to forge a more appropriate response. Until that point though, conversations are often useless. Arguing about how to correctly wash a fork is far less productive than talking about how stressed out I am that I’m not able to be at home. In the same way, expressing resistance to change because of the sadness and loss you feel when faced with leaving a place that holds memories of a wedding day filled with love or memories of cherished moments with someone you’re still grieving can produce a much different response than resisting because it’s been this way for years and there’s no need to change.

This kind of vulnerability is tough, not just because it means being open and honest with others, but because it also means being open and honest with yourself, and sometimes that can hurt. Not many people have learned vulnerability like this. In past years, I’ve realized that my anger is often code for a hurt that I’ve decided (consciously or subconsciously) not to deal with. What I’ve realized is that it’s easier to be angry than to be hurt.

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In the face of change, vulnerability precedes productivity. Vulnerability means letting someone else help you through the change, and sometimes we don’t want that help. Sometimes it’s easier to just resist the change and pretend like we’re not hurting.

The problem is that this often produces a great deal more hurt than what we had to begin with.

Choosing vulnerability doesn’t necessarily mean choosing change, but it does mean recognizing and choosing to deal with the hurt.

Change happens, but you decide your response.