Change is in the Air

Sometimes we crave change. Other times we dread it. Either way, we can't escape it. Here's how to live with it—and learn from it.

By Chris Colin

"I hear a lot of people say that change is exciting, but they mean a specific kind of change," says the Reverend Frank Jude Boccio, an interfaith minister and yoga therapist in New York, who is the author of Mindfulness Yoga (Wisdom, 2004). "We all have an aversion to change that we'd rather not have. Certain change is appreciated, and some is not."

The funny thing is that as a culture, we seem determined to celebrate change. "Change is good," we tell each other, and, "Everything happens for a reason." Thoreau himself volunteered, "All change is a miracle to contemplate." Yes, we praise the virtues of change religiously—until some unwanted, unscripted change occurs. Then, mostly, we long for permanence. For all our professed faith in the benefits of transformation, we are a species that falls to pieces upon learning the salmone fresco is sold out. Generally, we cement where possible and panic where not. The smallest nudging of our routine can send us into a tizzy, while big disruptions send us into therapy.

How can you learn to accept change with equanimity, absorbing each phase in stride and learning from each new experience? The answer may come from dealing with change in three distinct stages.

Loosen Your Grip
When any unscripted change comes down the pike, there's an overwhelming feeling of losing control, and that's perfectly normal—and also perfectly delusional, says Herdis Pelle, a teacher at the Berkeley Yoga Center in Berkeley, California. "We're moving into unknown territory," she says. "Deep down, we're never in control."

Pelle, who came to California by way of Denmark, England, and Scotland, says she bases much of her teaching on the changes she's experienced in her own life. It's not that she managed to get a better grip on those changes over the years—it's that she accepted the impossibility of any real grip in the first place.

As for Anna, it took her three years to let go of the feeling that her preordained future had been wrested away. Eventually she recognized that had she and her ex stayed together, there were no guarantees that life would have unfolded as she'd wished. With or without him, she realized, she didn't have control over life.

No one does. That moment you fantasize about? When the bills are paid, the roof stops leaking, the phone's not ringing, and you soak in the caught-up-ness of it all? That's when the dog runs away. Or the girlfriend gets pregnant. Or the tornado touches down. Life doesn't give you breathing room, but if you stop grasping for control of the uncontrollable, you can learn to breathe through it all.

Of course, just as you can dread change disproportionately, you can also overly invest in it, betting on a new job, mate, or baby to erase your troubles. Such eagerness for change may look like the flip side of resistance to it, but really it's another vain attempt to control your circumstances. "You think the change is going to be miraculous and solve all your problems," says Anna, who has, at last, found that the best way to approach change in her life—wanted or not—is to neither fear it nor think it's a cure.

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