First, it is helpful to understand what is happening in our lives. Change is defined as:

Change (chanj) v.  changed, changing, changes. –tr.  1.a. To cause to be different; alter. n.  1.a. The act, process or result of changing; alternation or modification.  2. A transition from one state, condition, or phase to another.

Notice that here we are discussing both nouns and verbs:

change may happen TO us

or

WE change.

Regardless, change is a “cause”—something we must react to—whether it happens around us, or within us.  Change sometimes takes place around us, to us, in our family, our home, our job, our friendships, or our other relationships.  It looks something like this:

Environments >>change>>SELF<<change<<Environments

Notice how big the environments and the changes seem, relative to how puny or helpless we might feel amidst them.  Our responses generally are: resist; do nothing; shift; transition; or transform ourselves.  Change can be scary, after all!  I will discuss these tendencies in a later column.

At other times, we make internal shifts: we change!!.  Perhaps our health changes or perhaps our frame of mind or viewpoints shift for no apparent reason. I call these internal shifts “LifeShifts.”  Sometimes it is these internal shifts that cause us to change what is happening around us.  We may want to quit our job, or leave our relationship, or move somewhere else. It looks something like this:

Environment<< shift<<SELF>>shift>> Environments

Which came first — the chicken or the egg?  Did external forces change, hence causing us to change?  Or did we change internally, thereby creating disruption in our environment?  Some people will argue that we attract what we are; if things around us change, really it is we that are changing.  They argue that our worlds are merely reflections of our own energies. I don’t try to sort that out, but rather to say, “this is the reality; now how do we determine our future?”    Regardless, we end up with a cause-effect relationship: something changes and we respond to it!

Before I describe some of my own coping strategies, I will say a tiny bit more about catalysts of change.

Category: JoNel's Blog