Life Challenges

Doorways of Support and Inspiration:
Change

How We Handle Change Carol L. McClelland, Ph.D.

In Future Shock, Toffler noted with despair that "most people are grotesquely unprepared to cope" with change. In fact, for most of us our first line of defense is to avoid change whenever and wherever we can. We see it as a threat to our carefully choreographed lives, something to be staved off at all costs: "This isn't really happening so I won't worry" or "It's not going to happen because I've got everything under control."

I'll never forget the conversation I had with a man at a networking fair not long after I started my consulting business helping people through life transitions. As soon as I introduced myself, he stated emphatically that he had no need for my services and never would, because his life wasn't ever going to change. He claimed to know that for a fact. I sometimes wonder how long his life cooperated with his vision.

When we are dumped into change, our favorite strategy is to try to recover our lives as quickly as possible: "Oh yes, my marriage broke up, but I'm fine now" or "I had hepatitis for a week and the doctor ordered limited work for three months, but I'm too busy to slow down." Because there's a part of us that feels we've failed when life takes an unexpected (or even expected) turn, we really don't want others to know what we're going through-an abusive relationship, an illness, an unsuccessful job search-so we gloss over details, put a smile on, and do what we can to make our lives look good while we try to get things back on track.

Society's general lack of support during times of change reinforces our feelings that change is bad and that we're failing in some way if our lives are in flux. Whether we're negotiating the vast cultural shifts of our time or making personal changes that are a natural and unavoidable part of being human, we tend to get the same message from the media, corporate America, and even our families and friends: Fix it immediately and get your life back to normal so you don't get stuck in the morass of confusion you're in now. In this scenario, there's no room for difficult emotions, little encouragement to find the best, most fitting solution, no opportunity for healing the wounds that are inevitable in any kind of change, and no understanding that true change takes time-sometimes a long time.

In many families, there's also a very powerful unwritten rule that lurks around the dinner table, bedroom, and car: Don't rock the boat. This often translates to: Don't threaten our carefully guarded existence by springing bad news on us that might cause us to get emotional. If this is a strongly held agreement, family members in the midst of a difficult situation may go to great lengths to "protect" the family. Over the years, I've run across situations in which a mother held off telling her children about a cancer diagnosis; a father failed to inform his daughter of her mother's impending death until it was almost too late for her to say good-bye, a fiancÈ hid information about a large debt; a daughter sheltered her parents from news of her layoff.

In the end, this "don't rock the boat" environment impacts everyone adversely. The people going through the transition feel isolated, and don't receive the practical help and emotional support they desperately need from their loved ones. Then, on top of that, the family members who've been shut out actually end up having a more difficult time with the transition because instead of having a chance to come to terms with the change as it happens, they must then try to integrate all the information-no small feat in any situation.

Excerpted from The Seasons of Change: Using Nature's Wisdom to Grow Through Life's Inevitable Ups and Downs by Carol L. McClelland, Ph.D., Conari Press, copyright 1998. Go to www.conari.com and www.seasonsofchange.com for more information.

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