Coping with change
Change has been a big part of our lives recently. We are having to readjust over and over again. As humans we like routine and all this change can cause stress and anxiety. Our anxieties and stress come from fears about the future.
Our minds are creatures of habit. We are unwilling to give up our routines even when it is causing suffering. Modifying our habits is difficult.
We tend to make up stories in our head. We catastrophise and imagine the worst possible outcome.
But YOU DON’T HAVE TO BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK.
‘The buddha taught a metaphor of two arrows: The first arrow is the inevitabilities of life – pain, loss, illness, and certainty of death. This arrow is unavoidable and will inevitably strike its target: every living being. The second arrow however, is one we shoot at ourselves, creating a self-inflicted wound. And this wound is often greater than the first. It comes from the complicating, storytelling activities of the mind, from all the ways the mind compounds anguish through its relationship to what is happening.
Check to see how much of your distress is the situation itself or your story telling around this situation. When we create a self-inflicted wound with the second arrow, we are often in state of denial; we are resisting reality, not accepting what is so. Or sometimes we take the general misfortunes of life personally, making more misery out of the pain of being.
Pain is the first arrow; suffering id the second. Mindfulness gives you the ability to side step the self-created “second arrows” of resistance and judgement, and at the same time bandage the inevitable wounds of impermanence.’ – 108 Metaphors for mindfulness, Arnie Kozak
We have to remember that nothing is permanent in this life (even us). The only thing certain in life is change.
So how can we use mindfulness to help us. We can check if the situation its self is causing distress or our thoughts around it. Being with whatever arises and accepting it with gentle compassionate awareness.
Instead of being with our thoughts we can be in the present moment with the situation. Which is not always easy and it can be unpleasant. This is where meditating can help to loosen the knots. Observing sensations in the body can acclimatise us to change in day -to-day life.
The mindfulness attitudes we can adopt are:
Trust – Trusting in yourself and in your experience
Acceptance – Allowing things to be as they are and not trying to control or change them
Letting go – Letting things be as they are, this means not grasping at things or pushing them away.
YOU CAN’T STOP THE WAVES BUT YOU CAN LEARN TO SURF.
We can go with the flow and not try to fight change which will cause suffering. Remember that you have this choice.
Being in the present moment means not thinking about the past, which has already happened and not worrying about the future, which hasn’t happened yet. Being in the present moment gets you out of your head and into your body. The present moment is the only moment we can control. We can’t control the future; we can try to influence it but it still may not the be the outcome we were hoping for.
We can use breath by breath awareness to anchor us into the present moment. If we are focussed on the breath then we are in the present moment.
Anxiety causes physical discomfort which results in tension. We push away unpleasant sensations but what we resist persists.
During meditation, you can set the intention to work with the flow of the breath in the present moment. Noticing where tension is in the body and practicing being aware of it and letting go.