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When we find ourselves going through
any kind of change in our lives, our natural response may be to tense up
on the physical, mental, or emotional level. We may not even notice that
we have braced ourselves against a shift until we recognize the anxiety,
mood swings, or general worried feeling toward the unknown that usually
results. There are positive ways to move through change without pushing
it away or attempting to deny that it is happening. Since change will
occur in almost every aspect of our lives, we can learn to make our
response to it an affirmative one of anticipation, welcoming the new
while releasing the past with grace.
One thing we can do is change our
perspective by changing the labels we use to identify our feelings. We
can reinterpret feelings of anxiety as the anxious butterflies that come
with eager expectation. With this shift, we begin to look for the good
that is on its way to us. When we acknowledge that good is there for us
to find, we focus our energy on joyful anticipation, allowing the
feelings to carry us forward.
We also can choose to do a ceremony to
allow our emotions to process. Every culture has created ceremonies to
help people make the transition from one phase of life to the next. We
can create a ceremony too, perhaps by burning written thoughts and watching
the smoke carry them away. Or we can welcome new endeavors by planting
flowers or trees. Some ceremonial activities such as a farewell send-off
or housewarming party, we may do automatically. Society also has built-in
ceremonies, like graduation and weddings. Sometimes the shift from denial
to acceptance is all that is needed to ease our anxiety, allowing us to
bring our memories with us as we move through nervousness to joyful
excitement about the good to come.
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