Making Friends with Change – Endings

CHANGE IS HAPPENING.
Significant change. Most of us are not liking it. Fear and anger are surfacing as we try to hold on to habits that we call normal, to those routines that we know, that provide a predictability that we call safety and security.
Yet these same habits will keep us tied to the past. But the past is over isn’t it?
Every moment is momentary, fleeting, here, then gone before we notice it. Normally. Future, present, past, all seem very similar for most of us for most of the time.
But now, something has changed, jolting us rudely awake to a situation that we now call chaos with all its connotations, most of which are uncomfortable and undesirable.

CHAOS OR FLUX?
But how about we use the word that it replaced: ‘flux’. Now think of the moon cycles, the daily ebb and flow of the tides, the seasons, all in flux, a natural flow all around us, like the currents of ocean and sky.

Flux has very different connotations, I believe, but the consequences are the same: often less dramatic but not always. Think hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes for example.
Contained within any change in the external world are the same three stages that we, as humans experience too.
So the picture above is something we are very used to seeing each year when the leaves on most trees start to change colour, wither and die. It’s the natural order which we accept as normal.

We may feel just a twinge of sadness at the passing of one season which we may well have enjoyed and face the prospect of daylight fading earlier, temperature getting colder. Most of us experience this fleetingly as we are protected by electric light and heat at the flick of a switch in our dwellings. Yet if we allow ourselves to stop, let ourselves be aware of this evidence of flux, we have the chance to acknowledge this ending.
I’m guessing most of us have got out of the habit of this type of noticing, however. Hence the shock that we experience when the flux is more sudden.

CHANGE OR TRANSITION?
As I explained in my previous post with the help of William Bridges’ model, these internal stages we go through are called transition and the first stage asks us to get clear about what exactly is over and acknowledge it in ways that consign it to the past.
This doesn’t mean forgetting what happened, for all endings are losses of situations that are known and familiar.
No, it’s about coming to peace with what has happened.

Most of us handle this stage very poorly, wanting to rush to the new beginning, not wanting to dwell on the past or be in the discomfort of not knowing what the new beginning actually is.
Why so? I can’t say this is true for all, but all endings are experiences of dying. And we can easily misunderstand that the ending of a situation is the end of us!

The endings may affect our work, our relationships with friends, family, where we live, how we live, who we live with. And more personally, our dreams, assumptions, beliefs, roles, self image.

Here are just a few suggestions and questions designed to help engage with this stage. Engagement is important or we are highly likely to drag the past around with us, leading to mental, emotional and physical consequences over time that we may not enjoy.

Take a trip down ‘memory lane’. Remember endings, small or not so small. How did you deal with them? When you look back now, how successful was your method?
What is actually ending, even temporarily or as far as you know right now?
What are you willing to let go of?
How will you acknowledge this?

These are just some of the ways that can help.
I’m also offering an opportunity to explore with me what might work better in  your personal circumstances.
If you think this will be helpful, do contact me here for a brief phone conversation absolutely free.

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