Anxiety over change:
Change, new normal, global reset, seem to be phrases that are always on people’s minds currently. I was having a conversation with somebody last week and they were becoming more and more distressed with all the changes in their world and the wider one. It was causing anxiety, which led to poor sleep and then migraines. This person was being overwhelmed with the ever-increasing pace of change as they saw it.
The key for me here is how they “SAW IT.” Change, flow of life, progress is inevitable parts of day to day living, however it does not have to be catalyst for stress and anxiety. What I suggested to this person was focus on what really has changed from an internal emotional perspective.
I suggested to them that they write a list of everything in their life that has NOT changed. For example, how the furniture is arranged in their house, the shrubs they have growing in the garden, favourite food or how they take their coffee, and this could also include how they feel about a loved one or family members. For this person it was very liberating to see that a great many things were exactly as before.
I then suggested a list of the stuff that they felt had changed. For this person who found sleep difficult because of anxiety over changes in their world quickly realised that this was a harder list to write in the cold light of day. At the end of this exercise, it was apparent that the list of changes was far smaller than the one of NO changes.
This person had become fixated on all the changes in the outside world and completely overlooked all the stuff that had not changed in their daily life, once they realised a large proportion of there life was the same as before a sense of calm immediately fell on this person. Going forward their sleep improved and when anxiety crept in over a news article or something they read on social media they just referred to their list of all the stuff that was the same as before.
Change is a good thing if you are ready for it or have initiated it. If you are not ready and this makes you feel anxious, it is worth just checking in with a list as I outlined above. Knowing that most stuff is the same will help put into perspective any changes you feel may be happening and how they may potentially affect your wellbeing.
If you too feel like suffer with anxiety over change and want to work with me on improving that, then click here to get in touch or follow my work on Facebook