Heroes Not Zombies

snow seat, originally uploaded by bobsee.

Some people are very sensitive to change. I’ve met people who become unwell at every change of the weather (quite a problem for someone living in Scotland I can tell you!). There are even people who are sensitive to the melting of the snow. The melting of the snow? Yes. Strange, huh? But really such a sensitivity is a particular hypersensitivity to change.
The reality is that everything is always changing. It’s the one constant in the world. Nothing, but nothing, stays the same.
We’re all different though. Some people relish change. They love it, thrive on it. Others are terrified of it and pour all their energies into trying to keep as much the same as possible.
How about you?
What changes do you relish? And which do you try to prevent?

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Posted in from the dark room, life, personal growth, photography | 8 Comments

8 Responses

1. on March 4, 2008 at 8:28 pm | Reply mrschili

   I have a very strange relationship with change. Some changes I LOVE (the change of the seasons, particularly winter into spring and spring into summer). Some changes I HATE (moving or renovating).

   I have serious security issues (gee! I wonder why!) and have a need for some things to be rock-solid reliable. I must trust in my relationships. My home has to be in the same place and in some semblance of order. I need to have certain routines that I can rely upon to be more or less the same to give me a sense of groundedness and foundation.

   I don’t mind the changes of the semester every 11 weeks, though – it’s like starting fresh again and again – and I’m rolling with the impending change in my job with the closure of my college. Strange that I should be so demanding of some parts of my life, but so flexible in others.

   I think a lot of how we handle change has to do with how secure we are in ourselves. I KNOW where my security issues come from, and I work to try to get underneath those things (Amy’s actually helping with that lately, coincidentally), but they’re deeply embedded and difficult to fully excise. Where I feel safe about something – our family’s finances, for example, and the fact that my income isn’t necessary for our survival – I’m able to welcome change much more readily.

   Does that make sense?

   
   
2. on March 4, 2008 at 9:04 pm | Reply spaceagesage

   My life is in flux right now because I am trying to change consciously and passionately. I just wrote in my blog that I keep having dreams about moving and boxes and suitcases. The transition is tough because I come from a family where change means you must be failing at something or you would stay the course. I know family members who live so much in this thought, nothing in their houses has changed in 30 years. They see it as comforting, I suppose; I see it as stifling and stagnant.

   
   
3. on March 5, 2008 at 3:51 pm | Reply bobleckridge

   You hit the nail on the head mrschili. The inner sense of security seems to me to be THE determining characteristic of the ability to cope with change. I know if I have a patient who’s had a very chaotic life, say for example because of long term illness in the parents when the person was a child, that they have what might often be a completely unconscious sense of vulnerability and change is very threatening to them. Like I quoted from Richard Kearney’s book. “On Stories”, we all need to make some concord out of the everyday discord. Well, when there’s too much chaos and discord, then the need for concord and stability gets greater. It’s often a mark of increasing wellness that a person becomes more able to cope with changes. But you’re right to point out that not all change is the same. Many changes are about new opportunities, or new relationships, jobs, pleasures, whatever, and are most welcome. Yet another kind of change is active change where we deliberately seek to make something new. That’s good too!
   What an interesting dream spaceagesage. Transition is especially tough when the status quo is given such high value in the family.
   I think one thing I’ve learned is that we really are all very different and, as you say, one person can experience comfort in constancy and regularity, whilst another experiences that as stifling and stagnant. The trick I think is to understand what works best for you and act according to those values, not the values of others, when it comes to your personal choices.

   
   
4. on March 6, 2008 at 4:22 am | Reply radha

   I love changes, any kind of change i use to face it with open heart and patience. There are swift changes of which we are aware after a while and others more evident which capture our attention. The more we are confident and creative the more we are ready to accept and coope with changes.

   
   
5. on March 6, 2008 at 10:37 pm | Reply bobleckridge

   I so agree, radha, the more confident and creative we are the more easily, or even eagerly, we deal with change.

   
   
6. on March 9, 2008 at 3:49 pm | Reply Benjamin

   Thought provoking comments. Someone once put it like this to me: To deal with change, you have to have constants. It may be a constant sense of self-worth. It might be an area of life that doesn’t change, a hobby or a habit.

   Change challenges the scripts and schema we use to make sense of the world. Too much at once, and everything falls apart, but too little and we stagnate. It is the same challenge for all, but different because of the differences we have hidden inside.

   It’s a tricky thing is change!

   
   
7. on March 9, 2008 at 3:53 pm | Reply bobleckridge

   I like that Benjamin. I think that too much change is definitely over-whelming for everyone. We do need some constants (or at least some things that are changing less quickly than others!)

   
   
8. on March 12, 2008 at 7:02 am | Reply Out of Control « Heroes Not Zombies

   […] posted recently about change. Well in the face of too much change it can feel as if our choices have run out. But you know what? […]

   
   

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