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Coping with Change in a Dynamic WorldCoping with Change When we talk about having trouble coping with change or coping with anything, there are usually two factors involved. The first is we do not know our full personal powers. We all have more choices available to us that we can make in dealing with any new setting. We all see about ten percent or less of the available options we can select in facing a new situation or relationship. We only push the buttons in life we feel we have a right to push, for our self-esteem will limit our permissions to push other buttons. Successfully coping with change means, we must see choices outside of our self-esteem range. Normally we will ignore these entirely, even though they are right under our nose! The second factor is our inner motive for being in the situation. There is an inherent natural tendency for us to give ourselves that which we feel we deserve out of life. If we have serious self-esteem issues, we will encounter situations for which we feel we are unable to cope. Weakness in coping with anything usually translates into, ‘I put myself in this situation for reasons of shame or guilt.’ If we ask ourselves, “Is this situation similar in any way to the situation of my childhood when I was growing up?” We may be surprised at the answer. If the difficulty is with another person in a relationship, such as a boss, superior relative, or abusive spouse, it may well be a reenactment of your relationship with your parents. We all see the world through the eyes of our relationship to our parents. Coping with life can be about difficulties other than relationships. What about problems of health, finances, change, or some fear that we may have? For those situations, each answer is different, for each has a different cause. Health problems can arise from our own abuse or from our line of work if it is difficult and we are getting older. We usually can correct, or at least live with most health needs if we modify our lifestyle to our new age and social status. The fact is we cannot do the work tasks as intensely as older persons that we could get away doing when we were younger. Coping with change here is to seek management positions, as older workers we should not have to do the younger person’s task. We should be superiors to them and managers in the workplace, long since promoted from the working ranks to those ranks of supervisors, managers, and teachers. If you find yourself needing to do things inappropriate for your age, you need to look at the reasons you choose to stay at the same job description instead of a promotion. Oftentimes there is an easier, higher paying job above us which we ignore, because we are afraid of learning the new responsibility. Similarly, we may pass over an easier line of work, to avoid the life change of a new career. Financial difficulties arise from unexpected change. For most of us, it is the factor of inflation. As the government prints more money, the newly printed money adds to the supply already out there, and it waters down the value of the dollars we already have in our checking accounts. Employers are not usually willing to increase their employee’s wages appropriately, and the crunch begins. Some responses we can do is increase our hours worked with overtime, or another part time job, or cut back on some living expenses. This cutback usually begins with keeping our car longer, once we pay off the loan against it. Change in financial difficulties requires that both spouses agree on a financial plan, and work together. Saving the family’s main possession, their home should be the first objective. Resist the impulse to refinance your property. While it seems like a cost saving move, it just adds years to your payoff date, for it starts your mortgage clock ticking again from the start. The only time it is prudent is if it will lower your payment enough to help your cash flow, and you would lose your home otherwise in your present payment arrangement. Financial difficulties are the hardest areas with which to adjust to change, because they are the hardest on relationships. Change can be very hard, because it is coping with the unknown. Oftentimes we do not welcome change because we want things to stay the way they are. We are comfortable with the boundaries and want to stay inside them. We are however dynamic human beings, we do not stay the same, and the social world in which we all interact at all levels, is dynamic also. This is as it should be and it is good. For each era of our lives has a purpose. We will live through many eras, some we hate terribly, others we want to stay in forever. Some eras may last a season, like a specific summer in junior high school, when you went with your first love. Some eras may last many years, like your employment at a certain favorite company. Whether short lived or long, all eras must at some time end. The truth is, each era has (or should have) taught you something good about yourself. Sit down sometime by yourself, make a diagram of the years of your life, and break it down into eras. Give them romantic names as I did, of all the major times since you can remember. If you had a crush on a certain person that you dated, (or wanted to), or a certain song was popular, or you lived in a certain city, give that era their name. For myself one such time was The Lena Smith/Debbie Spearman/Dean Martin Era. That would have been in nineteen seventy-three in Cape Canaveral, Florida. When we look at the eras of our lives, and we learn the lessons that era was to teach us, we would feel free to move on. What we are most deeply afraid of is that the good times of any era will never come again. Eras do not just happen to us, for we build them. The truth is we can move on to create eras of more freedom and more good things greater than those eras of today. A bright future is out there for you, full of many wonderful people that cannot wait to meet you! Coping with change will be possible when you have finished today’s business with all your relationships. If you have an apology to give, go and give it. If you have a debt to forgive, then forgive it. If your heart has a task it needs to do, then set about doing it. When you have finished this day’s work, tomorrow will emerge, with its prosperity and its blessings for you. God will guide your path, the path that is already within your heart. Adjusting to change is choosing to accept life and trust it to bring you your good. Every new era has more opportunity for enjoyment than the last, if we look for it. You should never fear the changing settings of life again, for they are only settings that will allow your blessings and your talents within you to come forth! For more on this subject please consider our first in series book Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind. In it, we take you through your spiritual journey back home to your Original Self. We talk about God's purpose behind that soul’s journey, as we follow our heart’s dreams to our ultimate destiny. We answer many questions about selfishness, prosperity, psychotherapy, and finding our dreams and happiness. We share much about boundaries. We also talk about the spiritual controls we have within to bring our good to us. Those controls are our Sincerity Switch, Spontaneity Switch, and lastly our Feelings and Dreams Switch. God bless you in your journey or in the help of your friends. We would love to hear from you! Please contact us and share your trials and victories with us. We promise to answer every Email personally. Shayne and Lori North in Aurora, Colorado
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