Want To Be Less Anxious? Change Your Relationship to Change

If you know me well, you know that I’m a planner. From time to time, you might even consider me a poster child for the highly-prepared, three-steps-ahead, Type-A, get-aheader.

It’s a quality I find both authentic and valuable to me, and one I’ve decided I wouldn’t necessarily change if given the choice.

But, as with all strengths, it can also come at a cost.

Future tripping, over-planning, overworking, and over-stressing, are all traps that we can fall into when attempting to control the future as a way to subdue anxiety. Because anxiety hates uncertainty. And so in response, many of us end up making endless yet futile attempts to “figure out” the answers in advance and a construct a false crystal ball in order to feel safe.

The same often also applies to the other side of the coin - those who find themselves prone to procrastination, avoidance, or overly going with the flow (aka, inaction). Deep down these responses can be just as much about resistance to change or a low tolerance for uncertainty dressed in different clothing.

In therapy, we often try to help clients discover and develop a healthier relationship to change. One in which we reduce the tendency either over-plan or under-act by being better able to accept and tolerate uncertainty in the first place. You can think of it a little like applying the Buddhist concept of impermanence. We acknowledge that change is an inherent part of life, and we suffer much less when we finally learn to accept it, allow it, and reduce our urge to label it as good or bad.

But today I actually want to invite you to consider what it might look like to take it one step further. What if we did more than just accept and tolerate change? What if we chose to wholeheartedly welcome it? So that when we encountered uncertainty, we chose to be exhilarated by it, rather than afraid? Or when life threw us a curve ball, we responded with resounding enthusiasm and gratitude, rather than frustration and pessimism?

Ultimately learning to say YES, rather than “No,” or “I don’t know.”

For many that may feel like a stretch, and by no means do I mean to imply this approach is appropriate for all situations. But sometimes flipping a mindset completely on its head can shatter our previously held beliefs and make space for a new and more expansive perspective.

—

When we lost our home in the fires in LA earlier this year, all of my meticulously constructed plans - months and even years of work - also went up in flames, in just one night. I had no choice but to accept that significant parts of our life would have to change and go along with pivoting our plans accordingly.

While there still remains a lot of trauma and aftermath for both myself and others who were affected by the disaster, the experience has also really forced me to change my relationship to change. In being able to get through it with the support our community, in having to shift plans I previously felt completely attached to, and in having to surrender to a lot of unknowns, it broke something previously rigid inside of me and helped me to find a huge freedom in letting go.

Maybe you’ve heard the popular reframe: Instead of asking yourself “what if it all goes wrong?” ask, “what if it all goes right?”

While a powerful and still very useful technique, in actuality this idea still reinforces anxiety’s need for certainty and a clear picture of the future. Instead, this is about what it might be like not to have to know, and to just trust the process and ride the ride?

Anxiety and perfectionism says, “I can’t be ok unless it looks this way.” But embracing change and uncertainty says, “Not only are there a number of different ways in which I can still be ok, but there are a number of different ways in which I can thrive - many of which I may not have even considered!” It takes not only letting go of a lot of control, but also the illusion that we always know best. When we lean into not being able to predict the future, it can actually be kind of thrilling.

—

Today we see the effects of a negative relationship to change manifest throughout a lot of our cultures - when there’s change, for example, at the office, within our community, or even the larger political landscape. While we should never deny that something like a layoff is traumatic and can increase real hardship, or that there are real injustices and unacceptable consequences of various acts of power, it’s also important to remember that our brains are wired with an inherent negativity bias, and that when we make judgments about change or the future, we often fall prey to faulty thinking habits like “jumping to conclusions” and “predicting the future.” We mistake a set of facts we have now for facts we now think we have about the future. And when when we do this, a cultural aversion to change can become contagious system-wide.

Of course none of this is a panacea. It’s important to hold space that there is almost always real loss to change, not all change is good and some is truly traumatic, and our ability to adapt to change can vary greatly with our level of resource. But it’s equally true that we take for granted the impact of the mindset that we take toward change in the first place. We can actually shift our orientation toward uncertainty and change. We can choose to resist it and view it with pessimism, or, we can choose to approach it more openly and optimistically. If we’re under-resourced when it comes to our ability to cope with change, we can also focus on finding ways to build more.

If it feels like too much, see if you can start with just practicing a bit more acceptance toward change. Allowing the idea of change and uncertainty to simply be neutral, rather than all good or all bad, can lead to significantly less suffering when it comes to how we feel about and cope with it.

But if it’s inspired something in you, I invite you to really experiment with opposite action, and try saying “hell yes” the next time change or uncertainty comes your way.

We are adaptable and often need much less control than we might think.

Anxiety may hate uncertainty, but turns out you don’t necessarily have to, too.