If we experience a major change in our life it can shake us to the core. Stressful times in our lives coincide with major changes such as the death of a loved one, the birth of a child or other life changes such as retirement, marriage or divorce. Generally these events come as a shock because we’re not expecting them or we are unprepared for their impact. As a result we have to expend considerable resources and energy in resisting the change before we can finally accept it and begin to do the work that is required to adapt.
If we are unprepared for change, this is often because we have allowed ourselves to believe that change is not going to happen. Unfortunately, most of us are not immune to this belief because it is more comforting for us to believe that the status quo is going to persist. Amusingly, even when our current state of affairs is undesirable, we sometimes experience a resistance to a change of circumstance. Unfortunately, our failure to recognize that change can be healthy can sometimes prevent us from experiencing its benefits.
Once the dust settles on the changes we experience, the new arrangement can often be desirable to us in ways we did not expect. At the very least, if we put in effort, we can become at peace with the way things have become. An even more beneficial result would be that we come to accept the nature of change itself. When we move towards that kind of wisdom, we create a resilience that is hard to dislodge. When life throws us curve balls we will be more and more likely to hit them because we are expecting them.
There is a path that we can take to make this a reality. We can train ourselves to deal with change by committing ourselves to the practice of insight meditation. This works in several ways. Firstly, when we devote time to reflection on our actions, we can begin to identify our most important priorities. This is useful because, when we are faced with a difficult situation, we will know immediately how to set priorities. Secondly, when we train the mind to return to the present moment, it is more difficult for change to knock us into a crisis mode. We will have practiced the art of taming the mind over and over again so that when we are tested we need simply to revert to the wholesome habits we have developed. With these habits firmly established, we will be ready to make change our most valuable catalyst for growth.