21 Ways To Deal With A Big Change

Have you ever seen what happens when children have to transition from one activity to the next? It isn’t always pretty. Any teacher, babysitter, or daycare worker can tell you to expect tension, drama, and sometimes tears whenever there’s a period of transition. 

Human beings of all ages struggle to cope with change. It takes time, effort, and experience to keep level as the world around you seems to change without purpose or notice. How do we soothe that inner child who struggles to move into whatever comes next?

“Am I this close to breakthrough? / Or am I just breaking down?”

Doe Paoro

How Do I Stay Focused During A Transition? 

As we navigate our way from one state of being to another, it can be all too easy to lose sight of our goals and dreams. This loss of vision can be debilitating, especially if we’ve spent our lives recoiling from one big change to the next. Ultimately, it’s our responsibility to pursue our dreams. Setting strong intentions can help us keep those dreams in sight no matter what. 

Setting your own intentions can be very powerful, as the intentions you set for yourself will be purpose-built for your own situation, but what does a strong intention look like? What if you don’t have time for all that? We’ve put together several intentions here to inspire and steal from.

• I can find comfort in my surroundings no matter where I am. 
• Change can be a very good thing, when we accept it. 
• I trust that this path is the right one, and even if it isn’t, I know how to find a new one. 
• When something is new to me, I will learn how to cope with it in a new way. 
• I am constantly adapting to suit my environment. 
• I can be brave and afraid at the same time.
• As things around me change, I too shall change in beautiful and surprising ways. 

Can Art Therapy Help You Adjust To New Circumstances? 

Yes! Art therapy is a powerful tool for healing, especially when we’re in a tumultuous state of change. Art can help us get in touch with our sense of expression, and represent thoughts and feelings that could have taken years to vocalize. It can be both enlightening and enjoyable to process the stresses of a big change through artistic expression. But how?

• Get Back Into Making Art. You don’t have to remind a child to make art, but the same cannot be said for adults. It seems that as we get older, we toss aside the practice of art into the pile of childish things we only did because we were young and unprofitable. But in reality, art is accessible and important for human beings of all ages, and it’s never too late to pick it back up again.
• Represent Your Big Changes In Your Art. Some of the most powerful art comes from artists who are undergoing a seismic change. Put your feelings about your own big changes onto the page. If you had to represent this big life change, what would it look like? What would it mean to you?
• Use Your Art To Have A Conversation With Yourself. Often we are our own harshest critics, even if we don’t realize it. Making art gives us an opportunity to see a very important perspective in vivid detail: our own! Artistic expression puts us in conversation with our conscious, subconscious, and unconscious minds, and through this we can learn how to listen to each of these impulses in greater detail.
• Make Art For Others. Making art is not inherently selfish. You are letting others into your heart and mind through the lens of your art. You are taking care of yourself by satisfying your need for complex expression. You are making something beautiful that wasn’t there before. Your art is a gift that you can give to the world.
• Let Go Of The Past With Art. Often, the pain of our present changes is multiplied by the pain of changes we had to undergo in our past. Art can allow us to process the events of the past in a safe non-judgmental environment.
• Make Time For Art. In order to achieve the benefits of making art, first we have to carve out the time to do it. You might look at your schedule and think that it’s impossible to find that time. Perhaps you don’t have time to break out the acrylic paints and put together a painting on canvas, but do you have the time to draw something with pen and paper? Even art on a smaller scale can be highly therapeutic, and it can be much easier to find the time to do it.
• Work With An Art Therapist. Art can be therapeutic when done on your own, but the most effective way to artistically work through a big change is to consult with an expert. The right art therapist can unlock your creativity and channel it into real meaningful progress.

DIY Therapy Techniques For Dealing With A Huge Change

There’s a lot we can learn from therapy when it comes to coping with change. But those lessons are more than just things we talk about in a session. If we want the things we learn in therapy to make an impact, that means using them in our daily lives. 

• Practice Resilience. Change can be a huge blow to our sense of self. A well-practiced sense of resilience gives us the muscle memory to get back up when we’ve been knocked down.
• Radical Acceptance. You might not approve of the changes in your life, but you can still have acceptance for them. Radical Acceptance helps us when we have to cope with something that is beyond our control.
• Approach Uncertainty With Curiosity. For many, uncertainty is the most frightening thing there is. One of the things we must cope with in any big change is the uncertainty of the new. If we approach with fear, we react with fear, but if we approach with curiosity, we can withhold our reaction until we have a thorough understanding of our new situation and can accept it for what it is.
• Embrace Your Failures. For all its indignities, failure gets a really bad rap. Although it can take a huge toll on our ego, failure is also our greatest teacher. Without failure, there could be no learning. Without defeat, there could be no victory.
• Honor Your Inner Child. If you search across the many personas you’ve inhabited throughout your life, the one that is likely the most upset by a big change is your inner child. We must tend to and parent our inner child, else they go into wild revolt. 
• Cope With Your Anxiety. A big life transition can inspire many feelings of anxiety. When that anxiety bubbles up, it’s our responsibility to soothe that anxiety until we can think things through clearly. 
• Letting Go. In order to accept the big changes in our life, we must let go of our attachment to the way things used to be. The process of releasing attachment is far more complicated than just releasing our grip. We must disentangle our complicated feelings, reframe our deeply held opinions, and ultimately find acceptance for things we don’t always approve of. But in the act of letting go, we can find peace with the unavoidable process of change and happily move on with our lives.

 If you feel stuck on your healing journey, working with a therapist can help. Based on your needs, our intake specialist will help you get matched up with your perfect therapist. Click here to schedule a consultation.

Sunny Ebsary is an educator, multi-modal artist, and writer specializing in the intersection of myth and mental health. Sunny’s writing walks the line between poetic and logical, giving readers a chance to interface with the mind and imagination. Sunny’s been putting pen to paper since he was a child, writing everything from albums, novels, and plays, to essays, interactive games, and of course, many articles! While studying both psychology and writing, he realized his real passion in life was helping others unlock their creative spark. Whether he’s leading a D&D game, directing a production, or diving deep into the brain, you can be sure Sunny will be ushering you toward finding meaning in your life.