The Inevitable Change


Change. Is it really a bad thing? I think the biggest reason why people get depressed or develop anxiety is the constant change that happens to all of us at any given moment. It's the unpredictable nature of life that leaves our hearts unsettled. Change happened to me when I found out my father was diagnosed with cancer. And even though you watch a loved one going through the struggles of an illness, and realize that their time is coming to an end, the inevitable change is almost still the same as if someone left your life suddenly. Many would disagree with that, only because there's the element of preparation involved. Nonetheless, it's a huge change -- the change that your life will take on once someone you love and known has gone away for good. It doesn't feel "normal" and creates a sense of fear. It's just a "new normal" for many of us.

Change can also mean a change in atmosphere -- a big move (whether moving on up or moving on down), getting married, divorce, finding out your pregnant, a new career -- all of these with the element of surprise and excitement, and some that causes anger, grief and anxiety. Think about this: if life were to remain the same all the time, how would we progress from point A to point B? We would have no challenges, eliminating strength and endurance, and even experience to make us strong and knowledgable. If you haven't let go to an unfortunate change, like clinging to the past of an ex lover or a loved one who has passed, your nostalgia will not only drive you nuts, it'll hold off your life. It'll prevent you from finding a new love, or it will leave you standing in the same emotional state (depressed and withdrawn) until you realize that everything needs to change. Everything needs to move on, pass on, so you can live on.

Your health can change at the drop of a hat. One day, you're able to run 2 miles or perhaps, do simple things like drive to the store, go shopping, cook and have a good time with your family and friends. Sometimes, a change in our health will prevent us from being able to do any of that. We take our health for granted. We sometimes complain over a simple cold (I'm guilty of this), and we sort of morph into big spoiled crybabies, when there are people out there doing more in their wheelchairs that we can ever imagine doing with our own healthy and able bodies.

Perspective. It's all how you see it. I've learned that you can actually have peace in the midst of chaos. You can change your thinking around in order to prevent you from going crazy. The myoclonic seizures that I was suffering from at night has been calming down. I do attribute much of it to the effects of the vitamin D, which I have now stopped, but most of it was due to the way I was thinking right before bedtime. Why is it that most of us start to overthink about negative things in our lives once we put our heads onto our pillows? I think about my mom, and how concerned I am about the cancer coming back. I get worried that she's sleeping alone, now that she lost my father. I worry about the next day, and the things I have to do or edit and publish. I especially overthink about preparations for guests coming over, which makes me insane, because I obsess over every detail. So now, I give all of those thoughts to God right before I sleep. One by one, I tell him, "Here, take this thought, and oh, here's another one, and don't forget to take care of this big one too." He grabs all of my worries for that evening and reassures me that they'll be taken care of, or at least, put on hold until tomorrow with tomorrow's own set of worries. After I adapted to this habit of giving my problems to God, I rarely get myoclonic seizures or "sleep jerks" any longer. I get them once or twice a week as opposed to every single night, leaving me awake until 5am. Big change! A good change!

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us--they help us learn to endure. And endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation. --Romans 5:3-4

I wanted to share my thoughts with you in case you are having a dilemma with letting go or just simply accepting 'what is' -- accepting the change that occurs all the time in life.

Another note I want to say is that on my Facebook page, I will no longer be promoting it like I used to. For some reason, it is drawing a very young (13-18 years of age) from Vietnam that don't even speak English. I'm worried that the promotions are drawing 'bots' and I want to keep my site clean from unauthentic viewers, and more interactions with real people. Twitter and Facebook both have been dealing with this issue. Periscope just recently deleted millions of bots, so the follower count went down dramatically. As on mine, I lost 1,000 followers due to them being unauthentic. I am happy about this 'clean up' in social media. I hope that it'll bring in more of a meaningful discussion in the comment section.

Thanks for reading!

For more of Deb's articles, please visit: www.debrapasquella.com or join her on Facebook and Twitter. Check out her cooking blog for some of her famous recipes!