Trusting Change

I recently heard someone say that we should trust change.

You’re probably feeling as outraged as I was — “trust change?!”

You have GOT to be kidding me.

Change + Me

I am not great with change — at least in some areas. For example, while I love changing my haircut, I do not love ordering new menu items at restaurants. Also, I enjoy taking on new tasks at work, but I do not enjoy (at least at first) social situations — especially where I do not know anyone ahead of time.

So when I heard the idea that we should trust change, not only did I not like it, I didn’t quite get it.

How can we trust when we don’t know what’s going to happen?

And then it hit me: that’s kind of the point.

We’re not trusting the result — we’re trusting the actual process of change.

That’s a whole ‘nother (scarier?) ballgame.

Why Trust Change

As I continued to listen to this person, I realized that trusting change really means trusting myself. It means knowing that I’ve been through SO many changes in my life, and I’ve (so far) survived them all.

Some were really hard. And some I went through quite begrudgingly (to put it kindly).

But no matter my attitude, I did get through it.

What Change Feels Like

Sometimes it feels like every change is something we’ve never encountered before. And perhaps it is in some ways — that’s probably at least one of the reasons that it’s called change in the first place.

This constantly feeling like you’re in a new situation is what can make change challenging. We want things to just settle and be the same sometimes.

But what if instead of seeing change as the new, we saw it as the constant?

Because, truly, it is.

Change as Our Constant Companion

Trusting that we can weather change might open up new insights into ourselves. It might increase our resilience. And it might make us less hard on ourselves.

For example, imagine the pain I would have saved myself if, when I was letting go of dieting and shifting into intuitive eating, I’d recognized it as a change. I know change: I know that it has stops/starts, ups/downs, but that eventually I make it through.

If that had been my perspective, my inevitable (yes, inevitable) “failures” wouldn’t have been signs of what a weak, terrible person I am. Instead, they would have been signs that I’m going through a change; they would have been expected, perhas even welcomed as steps along the way.

Because ultimately trusting change is another version of trusting ourselves. And that’s a change that would do us all some good.

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