Adapting to the Uncertainty of Change

Hi everyone,

As human beings, we like to think that we are in control of our lives. In reality, we aren’t. The effects of grief after any loss changes everything. Life events outside our control include:

• Suffering the death of a loved one, including a pet

• Being downsized from a job

• Going through a divorce or breakup

• Feeling abandoned by family and friends

• Losing trust in yourself, others and the world

I define loss as the death of a future imagined or co-created that will never come to pass. Dreaming forward is how we give ourselves a predictable path forward. Grief disrupts that fictional certainty of control.

Wanting to prevent unwanted changes, we hold both sides of difficult conversations in our heads before we have them in-person. We sometimes self-sabotage in a job or relationship when we fear being let go or left behind. We create the negative outcomes we are trying to avoid by trying to exert control over the uncontrollable - people or experiences.

We are so accustomed to anticipating the worst case scenario that we can make it happen. Learning how to adapt to the painful uncertainty of change is a life skill which everybody needs to be able to do.

How to Better Cope With Change

This Jay Shetty blog post shares about the 5 Stages of Coping With Change You Can’t Rush

1. Anxiety - Unexpected change rooted in unrealistic expectations makes us anxious. The more quickly we ground ourselves in the facts, the better decisions we can make for any situation.

2. Anger - Anger can be outward-facing or turn inward on ourselves. Deflecting anger into a journal as you head towards how you want to feel helps. The key is not to let the anger take over.

3. Acceptance - Change happens. It is unavoidable. It doesn’t matter how you feel about it. By accepting what’s real instead of what you would prefer to be true, interactions become aligned.

4. Adapt and Adjust - Small changes make a big difference. Try something you have never tried before - an activity, a friendship, a career path. Stretch out of your comfort zone.

5. Action - Figure out what you want to have happen - a relationship, a job, a move - and begin. Take baby steps in any direction. Forward, backwards, sideways each give you a new view.

You may notice some parallels with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ model of the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Accepting the truth of a loss is the key to moving forward again. I call it a tipping point.

Own Your Tipping Point to Move Forward

How do you find your tipping point while grieving?

When a life event happens and everything changes, it creates a push-pull effect between wanting things to stay the same, predictable, and accepting the pain and uncertainty of that change, in order to move forward.

The most important change is YOU.

When we focus on external circumstances we can’t control as the source of our discomfort from the uncertainty of loss and the grief which follows, we miss the point. We can only choose what we do next.

Who we are before and after a loss is forever changed. When we hearken back to a past which will never come again, we want an impossible dream. That amplifies our helplessness in the midst of the disruption of our lives.

The tipping point is when we accept the truth of our loss and accompanying grief. That is the place where we choose to move forward again. From personal experience, it doesn’t always feel good.

Also, although we cannot change external realities, when we own that we ourselves are different, our interactions with people and situations changes. Other people’s reactions to how we are ‘being’ necessarily alter too. This paradigm shift creates new possibilities in communication, connection and action which we could not even imagine before.

Your Legacy - What Will You Leave Behind?

We think of legacy as associated with huge, philanthropic acts, like Mackenzie Scott, who has given away $16 billion to over 2000 charitable organizations since her divorce from Jeff Bezos in 2019, which offer solutions to problems like lack of affordable housing, reproductive health, education, etc., that she cares deeply about.

Consider the Butterfly Effect - the idea that a small action can have a non-linear impact on a complex system, like dominos.

This means your small action, your legacy, whatever it may be, matters as much as her big one. Really.

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Your legacy is whatever you say it is.

There is no defined timeline for deciding when is the ‘right time’ to pursue your passion project, write your book, create your art, move your body, raise your child, change the world, etc.

As far as I can tell, pursuing a legacy happens when the urgency of it gets so big and loud that it can’t be denied any longer. It outshouts the busyness of our lives and the voices who say we can’t.

Grief and loss often shine a light on what matters most. They point to painful places in our lives where we saw something missing and want to heal that hurt for others in the future.

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For me, the creation of the Affluence Code distinctions in my 50s came from my sadness as a young child that people were suffering, not being valued for exactly who they were. It made no sense to me and I wanted to help.

Bad Widow speaking, coaching and my book about my grief journey came a few years after my husband, David, died in 2016. But I lost family and friends before and puzzled about why we don’t allow ourselves to grieve or know how to support people we care about when they are, since my brother died when I was 25 years old.

The point is, stepping into your legacy can happen immediately or take years. There is no ‘right’ time, only yours. Each of us has a contribution to make, usually finding a solution for something you care about, when you are ready.

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This newsletter issue, Adapting to the Uncertainty of Change offers ideas about how to find solid ground in the midst of unwanted, unexpected change. If you want to know how I can support you, let’s chat.

Schedule a complimentary 20-minute zoom call to identify your tipping point and move forward with more ease on your grief journey. Click the link below: https://thebadwidow.com/ConnectWithAlison.