Dealing with life changes can be difficult, particularly if you don’t feel like you have any choice in the matter. Life changes include issues that permanently affect your physical or psychological health, such as the onset or diagnosis of a chronic illness; career change, job loss, or relationship and family breakdowns. It might also include things like moving to a new city or country, or dealing with other changes in your circumstances such as finances. Often these changes are imposed upon us, but even changes that you’ve wanted can cause difficulties as you adjust to a “new normal”.

As a result of these experiences you may notice that you are:

• Having a negative view of life
• No longer enjoying activities that were previously pleasurable
• Finding it difficult to relate to others
• Unsure what to do next
• Feeling angry, anxious, or depressed.

Why is it difficult to cope with change?

It’s very easy and normal to feel powerless, confused, or overwhelmed in these situations. When we face setbacks or things don’t go our way, we might find that our sense of self-worth may reduce, that things begin to feel pointless or not worth the effort, or that life isn’t fair. Changes can bring about fear, and most often this fear comes from being unsure what will happen next. When the amount of stress in our life changes, our previous coping strategies might no longer provide enough relief.

How Seed Psychology can help you

Our psychologists will help you to identify unhelpful patterns of thinking or behaviour that are contributing to your difficulties in coping with change, and support you to develop new skills and coping strategies. Building psychological flexibility is an important component in being able to cope with both your immediate challenges, and other changes that might arise and cause difficulty in the future.