Mindfulness and the Stress of Change

change circle

Have you ever asked yourself why something as prevalent as change creates so much stress? If you read the various studies on stress you will find that change is the number one factor in causing stress. Change manifests itself in all human experience. Since the nature of life is change then how have we arrived at a point where the very nature of our lives as humans is at the core of creating stress? It’s like we are allergic to life. We seem to have lost the ability to go with the flow and welcome change as a friend.

I think change reminds us that we are all mortal and that someday we will die. Although we see change on multiple levels it is the ultimate change of dying that drives the stress reaction. The stress reaction, or fight or flight, is our biological response to danger. Fight or flight is designed to increase our chances for survival in a situation that involves extreme danger. Without our ability to shift into survival mode we would surely be at a disadvantage. The primary emotion generated in fight or flight is fear, specifically fear of dying. This is a very useful emotion in a situation that requires us to mobilize all our resources to survive. When we get stuck in fight or flight, which so many of us do, we end up living with the fear of death. That fear is the ultimate experience of change and ends up expressing itself in the way we experience life in general. We take the assumptive leap of looking at all change as being connected to the change of death and surely it is. So being saddled with the generalized fear of dying we begin to interpret that all change will eventually lead to death…which it does, and that it is something to be afraid of. The key is to shift the nervous system out of fear mode to an experience that has no fear and that welcomes change as a friend. How does this happen with mindfulness?

The main thing that mindfulness does is have a profound effect on our nervous system in such a way as to resolve the fear that results from being stuck in fight or flight. The first thing mindfulness teaches us is that the nature of life is change and that we need to learn how to flow with the constant change. This is implicit in the mindfulness practice that involves training the attention to remain in the present moment by fully experiencing the nature of change. At the same time we are fully experiencing change we are noticing that there is an experience of no change just beneath all of the change. We begin to connect with that ground of being that never changes and acts as the foundation and anchor for a life of constant change. Without this foundation/anchor of no change the very nature of life continues to be the source of stress reminding us that we too will change and ultimately die and that it is to be feared. Partnered with the sense of the inner stability of permanence, change and death becomes our friend and a source of exploration, amazement and joy. That sense of permanence is found in the present moment. It is the only place where permanence survives and is the place where mindfulness begins. Once the connection to the permanence of the present moment is realized, the stress of change goes away and life is experienced without fear. At that point anything is possible and life blooms as it was meant to. Mindfulness, the experience of the present moment, gives us that gift and allows for constant change to co exist with permanence in harmony.

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