An Uneasy Friendship with Change

Relationships can happen with people or with things, and of course with oneself. All three types of relationships are discussed at length in psychotherapy. Today’s piece is about our relationship with the thing we call change. Change can be viewed as a friend that both gives and takes away. Sometimes we love it, and other times we fear and resent it. We all need it though.

Plenty of relationships need work and all of them require effort. Now, we can become very good at attending to the needs of any relationship, which makes the effort feel natural. Getting to this kind of groove, however, is typically the product of experience and perhaps getting it wrong at first. Life is complex and it calls us to try many strategies so that we can strive to be in harmony with it.

Given the range of feelings one can have towards change, our relationship with it seems to be ripe for a closer evaluation. Even if you consider nothing is drastically wrong with your relationship with change, it never hurts to take inventory of what is helping keep up the health of the dynamic. If nothing else, this post will attempt to provide some food for thought.

Normalizing change as a helpful friend

The change that may stick out to you the most is the kind that has high stakes. Many changes are mundane, however, each albeit important in their own way. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that on a basic level, for something to change it simply goes from being in one state to another. Change as a concept seems less intimidating if we can embrace the view that many occurrences of it are not serious on their own. If I go from a state of standing to a state of laying down, that is a change that doesn’t risk heavy consequences. This change allows me to rest and therefore can be viewed as a helpful friend here. It is important to see change as natural and necessary.

I like the view that change is movement. Even if you deliberately stay in one place physically, the living parts of you are always in movement. Your blood flows and therefore it moves. You digest and absorb nutrition, that’s movement. That’s change too as the state of many things experience various placements and transformations just inside your own being. These changes/movements are life-sustaining, parts of a whole that cannot be completely still so long as the whole is alive. Change is movement and movement signals life. A total lack of movement signals death as one cannot survive if the functions of their organism reach a point of complete stagnation or non-movement.

Fearing betrayal

This isn’t to say that there’s no such thing as something changing for the worse. It’s fair to dislike that potential and it’s not for no reason when we avoid a change that appears threatening. You may have met someone who is non-risk-taking to a fault or comes across as fearing any change. One explanation for this is that change can be associated strongly with its liability potential. We may prefer something familiar because we cannot fully trust that a movement, transformation, etc. won’t leave us in a worse place.

We also may hesitate to choose to make a change because there is something incredibly uncomfortable about feeling complicit in a bad outcome should things go in the direction of misfortune. A lack of guarantees for the efficacy of an action is scary. Who wouldn’t dread the idea of a friend betraying them? Viewing change as the bad, unreliable friend comes from a place of vulnerability. 

Making amends with a friend

Don’t all healthy relationships benefit from a level of trust? We may be pinning misfortune unfairly to change itself at times, although the thinking behind this can be understandable (see the last section). If we’re viewing change as movement, you could argue that change isn’t the issue as much as the “direction” that may benefit from an alternative. In this case what needs to be addressed is the how instead of the willingness, decision, desire, or need to change.   

I say this because having too much avoidance of change can become very limiting. You could say life is movement in the way described above (i.e., anatomically), though we can see change/movement as life-giving when it comes to decisions. We mustn’t conflate non-movement with stability when change can in fact potentially serve as an opportunity to reach an improved or more stable state. Many of the best things in life at least require that we try to move toward it.

I can agree that there are times when less is more or when something doesn’t need to be altered just for the sake of it. The best change is carried out with purpose and with one’s wellness being considered as much as possible. Effectively applying an attitude of trust with discretion is part of an ongoing process of viewing relationships critically yet flexibly.

Personal development

Becoming the person we need to be requires us to change from the person we were, something we try to do for the right reasons. When we experience growth, we change. Sometimes this entails a level of discomfort. We can never too quickly assume that discomfort is either constructive or harmful. Both versions are possible. Determining which is which requires us to use our judgement.

Perhaps change should always be at least a consideration, even if the right call in the moment is to stay the course. One simple prompt to keep up a general spirit of proactivity is to ask oneself, “Is there anything about this moment that I can change for the better?” It’s okay if the answer to this question ends up being “no.”

Sometimes options are limited or unnecessary, but it could be helpful to check. In many cases good decisions are all in the timing. Try to keep in mind that a “go-to” is not always strictly what is best, even if there is comfort in the familiarity. Being proactive means updating our understanding of what is helpful versus what isn’t as a general habit.

Remember you are the essential agent when it comes to enacting movement toward something good. Good things are often the product of a series of events big and small. We may forget sometimes the power of encouraging things along. That doesn’t mean an ideal outcome happens in one fell swoop. There is merit to coming closer or nudging likelihoods in one’s favor.

Change has its place

We can be enriched by finding the purpose behind something as an alternative to seeing it only for its risk potential. Change can be intimidating but writing it off entirely closes a person off from life, experiences, opportunities, etc. Avoiding change as a rule is virtually impossible to enforce as life can never be an endless unaltered state. It would be more akin to death to be in an infinite state of non-change.

With our choices we can hope to have some influence over how that change is directed. While not everything is up to us, the value of trying your best in good faith can make an enormous difference, especially over time. The benefits of one’s efforts have a way of adding up. Let us all appreciate any movement toward the kind of rewarding circumstances available to us.