Argh change!… I have never been quite good at it. Still at the big old age of twenty-one new and unfamiliar things sets a deep ticking time bomb of anxiety and dread in the pit of my stomach. There is the saying “you’ve got to roll with the punches” meaning sometimes (well quite often) life chucks you into the deep end or throws a curveball at you. All we can really do is learn to accept change as a part of life, and then we can navigate through these situations and things we do not like.
In this week’s article I am going to begin to unpack and write more openly about my personal worries and anxieties in a mini-series I am going to coin ‘TBH…’. In which I attempt to give voice in an honest and truthful way to the things which I am fearful of, hopefully, anyone else reading this (if there is anyone) can relate and identify with these inner anxieties I will be speaking about.
I think that it is really important and healthy that we give voice and admit openly (to ourselves and others) the things which trouble and make us anxious in our lives, as I have come to learn.
I don’t know about you but, I think it is refreshing and cathartic to vocalise the things which make us anxious, words almost make tangible the worries within us that so often rule and remain internally lodged. When these anxieties, however big or small, are never uttered outside of our minds that is when they manifest and begin to consume us.
There is a running joke in my family that when I was little, I always had an expression of worry plastered across my face constantly. I do laugh at it, especially when I am told I cried in panic going into every single new school year at primary school. When it came to moving up in secondary school, I still was anxious but did preserve some self-dignity by crying at home instead at school in front of everyone.
Generally, most things make me anxious and change and the unknown are up there on my list. Trying to pin down why ‘change’ and ‘difference’ instil fear into my core is tricky. I have always been a quiet and anxious person. I like things to stay the same, I like to know and be in control of the situations I go into. The familiar to me means safety and the new and unfamiliar means danger and difference. I am afraid of change because I do not know it and what in fact it will bring with it…
Like many people, jumping into university was a massive and uncomfortable leap for me, it felt like I was going against every natural instinct and feeling inside of myself which told me to “run” from the danger and fear of the new and uncertain, that this wasn’t me. I was quiet, shy and an anxious person and that new situations I wasn’t familiar with were bad. I don’t think that the pandemic helped that much as I had gotten myself rather too comfortable at home and away from people. The fear of change I had always had before the pandemic became heightened and did manifest itself.
However, university despite its scariness and uncertainty caused many positive changes in my life, something I did not think it would do. I have come to understand that change is inevitable and that I am strong enough to deal with and face the new and the uncertain.
When I used to think of change, I think I used to imagine it as this dark black cloud ahead of me, coming towards me, about to swallow me whole. I used to think that change meant negativity, disruption and uncertainty. Now I see that change is still something I am afraid of and still the same dark cloud of fog in front of me, but I can see through it onto the other side. It may not be transparent, it still is a bit murky, but I can see through and see a light through the grey cloud. I know now through experience that out of change and the unknown comes opportunities and greatness.
When a situation of change and uncertainty crops up, I still do panic and anxieties do get a hold of me. I have to remind myself that I’ve dealt with it before and good things come out of change, life is about progression and moving forward and change makes that possible. Change doesn’t mean letting go of the past or the things we already have. Disruption doesn’t always connote negativity and positivity can come out of change. I remind myself and so should you: change can be for the better and for the good, do not fear it.