On some rare occasions, change in routine by some unforeseen circumstances or event jolts us into becoming more conscious about how unconscious decisions are affecting our lives.

Sudden change hits with avalanches of decisions causing the mind to spin out of control and laden us with anxiety and worry. Basic routine decisions that were once made with ease take us well out of our comfort zone.

We know this to be true when waking up to worry the instant our eyes open in the morning. Changes in normal routine can also cause many sleepless nights, changes in eating habits and attitude toward life. As the severity of change increases, so does our response. Threatening change perception pushes us to respond in one of the following ways: fight, flight or freeze response. I, like many of my clients and students share varied experiences but our responses falls neatly into one of the three mentioned. When we are in fight mode there is a resistance to occurring change where we often struggle to avoid a loss. Flight mode finds us in denial and running away from facing events, situations and circumstances. Finally, when overwhelmed with uncertainty, the freeze response holds us captive and fearful. We all seem to have one thing in common no matter the experiences. When change persists and seems unbearable physical appearance, behavior and or mental attitude toward self and others is altered.

Mindfulness helps us to reset and regain confidence in our ability to withstand change and contribute rather than resist it.

Undesirable changes can be significant when we make unconscious choices that adversity contribute to our current state of being. Mindfulness brings control into focus. We may temporarily lose control of our comfort when change happens but mindfulness helps us to stay in touch and grounded in what we do have control over. Practice mindfulness in three steps. 1. Take inventory of your emotions. Stop to connect with how your feel and how your are responding to the events of life. If you notice that life is spinning out of control and adversely affecting your attitude, health and or behavior, it is due to indecision and fear. 2. What can you do now? Avoid rehashing the past or attaching to future expectations. You don’t have control over either. You only have control in this current moment.

Create a string of decisions based on clear moment to moment decisions that resonate with your greatest good. 3. Create a simple, attainable goal. Do everything you know to match the intension and then detach from judgement of outcome. This is were we often get stuck. Knowing that you’ve tried everything you know how and still not gaining favorable outcome is nerve wrecking. It is when we fear loss that we spin out of control. Stay grounded by practicing non-judgement. Things happen for reasons that we cannot always see. A life well lived is one that matches our greatest intensions with our greatest good. Don’t worry if you don’t know what that is. Life has a way of showing us through change. Learn to flow instead of resist what is out of your control.