CHANGE

How can we deal effectively with change? The ChallengeChange is all around us, it's unavoidable, in fact, change is part of the process of life. So ... why do we chronically fear change and react with anxiety through this natural process. We should be used to change by now ... it's been part of life for millions of years! The reason we may fear change is between what we might call "familiar" and "unfamiliar" types of change. Familiar change is the type we all can, more-or-less, expect and anticipate: we grow older, we learn new things, we expect to get a flu in winter, our favorite (mostly winning) team goes on a (mostly) losing streak, etc.It is, however, normal to feel disoriented in the midst of unfamiliar, or unexpected, change and cues. In our rapid-fire, rapidly changing world, our schedules, plans and routines become disrupted in a totally unexpected way. The recent mortgage crisis, the stock market crash, and the global economic turmoil are all unexpected, profound, changes that most people simply did not expect to happen.The challenge is to learn skills so that we can deal with both types of change, the familiar and the unfamiliar, the expected and the unexpected. How do we learn to become resilient and confident in our ability to deal with change?