Sometimes Change Feels Like Loss

Written By Sydney Buchanan

7 MIN READ · VOL. 01 · ISSUE 02

 

Change can happen in an instant, but we often need more time to understand what it means. We can usually see what we’re losing before we know how the change is going to affect us. This issue explores why change can feel like loss while the full picture is still unfolding.

 

How would you define your relationship with change? To say that it’s complex and present in all facets of life feels too vague because it doesn’t describe what the relationship actually is. Okay, maybe those aren’t the words you’d use to describe it. But I’m curious, what does change look like to you? What does it feel like for you?

Change seems to be full of contradictions. It’s dynamic and unpredictable, but can feel fixed and inevitable. It’s powerful, yet subtle. Even our attitude toward change shifts depending on the form it takes and how it impacts us. I recently found out that one of my closest friends is moving, and while I’m excited for her to start a new chapter, there’s also a bittersweet feeling I can’t ignore. Her life is changing and, inevitably, our friendship will too.

Regardless of how we feel about it, change requires us to leave something behind. A relationship. A dream. The person we were just a moment ago. Whether or not it feels like a loss, in a way, it is. Something isn’t coming with us. But that doesn’t mean we have the full picture. Change can’t be fully understood the moment it happens. We can usually see what we’re losing before we understand how the change is going to affect us. But that doesn’t mean loss is all there is.

We crave what's familiar —

Our relationship with change is shaped by our attachments and the meaning we derive from them. Attachments to others, to identity, to routines, to an imagined future. Our sense of safety is often tied to knowing what to expect. Novelty can be intriguing, but most of us find comfort in consistency and routine. However temporary, a disruption can make loss more apparent and deepen our identification with what we’re losing.

It may seem counterintuitive, but we develop a sense of safety from what we call “normal,” even if we don’t benefit from it. We can still feel the loss of what was familiar, even if it wasn’t ideal or practical. Whether the change registers as a loss is subjective. What’s not subjective is that we cannot fully acknowledge a changed reality if we refuse to recognize something has ended.

When good news stirs up mixed feelings —

Of course, change can also come as a welcome gift. But that’s not to say there isn’t a loss. It just doesn’t get your attention right away, if at all. That immediate sigh of relief that comes when dinner plans you didn’t actually want to keep are canceled. Your good friend sharing that they not only got a promotion, but are getting a sizable pay increase. Both sound like good news! Yet, even these seemingly positive events can create a sense of uncertainty. You can begin questioning what led to the change. Did they cancel dinner plans for everyone just because they knew you didn’t want to be there? You can also start to question yourself in relation to the change. Is your friend’s promotion a signal that you should be doing more in your career? You’re not losing anything tangible in either scenario, but you still don’t know what the change means or how it may affect you. That lack of clarity can sometimes feel like a lack of control.

When uncertainty is all we’re certain of —

An unexpected change can leave us feeling powerless. When parts of our lives we thought were within our control change in ways we weren’t prepared for, it’s hard to predict how we’ll react.

There are times when ongoing uncertainty becomes a simple fact of life. In my early twenties, I was diagnosed with a chronic condition that substantially changed what my life would look like. Nothing in the first month of treatment could have prepared me for what was to come. The interventions weren’t working as expected, my body wasn’t reacting as expected, and I was advised to let go of any expectations and accept that I would have a “reduced quality of life.” I put that in quotes because I will never forget when my specialist said it to me.

Here’s the thing: I’m not unique. You don’t need to have a chronic condition to have experienced a version of this story: losing your sense of normal, learning that a plan isn’t going to solve the problem, or realizing that who you are is not who you were and your life isn’t going to look the way you’d imagined.

I’ve lived with my condition for over a decade. My daily life still involves constant symptom management, and there are still changes! When I was younger, my uncertainty about these kinds of changes turned into hopelessness. I couldn’t imagine a future that didn’t look like the present. While it’s still true that nothing can undo what’s been done, I am a fundamentally different person from that twenty-one-year-old sitting in a hospital room, being told they weren’t going to get any better. I also have fundamentally different views on how my life was changed by my condition, and they’re not all bad.

Some things take time —

Whatever sets a change in motion can happen in an instant, but the ripple effect takes time to develop. We make assumptions about what a change means based on the limited information we have at the time. What initially appears to be a small change may later reveal a greater loss or opportunity than we anticipated; the same is true of what first appears to be an obvious gain. As time passes, a change may expose costs that were unforeseeable in the beginning.

The saying “change doesn’t happen overnight” is exactly right. We need time to process and reconcile what happened, then decide how we are going to adapt. Put simply: the event that sparks a change can happen in an instant, but we need time to understand it and figure out how to live with what’s changed. Which brings us to everyone’s favorite A-word: acceptance.

Acceptance and what comes next —

Acceptance, in its simplest form, is acknowledging what is true. It doesn’t mean that we agree with it, that we want it to happen, or that we won’t oppose it. Some changes, some losses, are irreversible. Others are temporary. How we respond to change plays a significant role in how we experience it. Once we accept that something has changed, we can respond to what is happening in front of us. Not what we wish was happening.

Part of responding to a change means learning how to live with it. Sometimes it involves trying to change it back, if that is a realistic option. But if we can’t undo what happened, we may need to adjust our course or create something new.

I mentioned that my understanding of how I would be affected by my condition has transformed significantly since my diagnosis and early treatments. It took me years to accept that my condition was not going away. I spent that time fighting, searching, medicating, and meditating before I finally accepted what was. And once I did, my life changed again. My condition didn’t go away, but it no longer defined every part of how I saw myself or my life. I started to learn how I could adjust my daily life so that I did not feel defined by the “reduced quality of life” I had been prescribed.

When we remain committed to a past version of reality, we are forced to continually confront the difference between what is and what we believe should still be. Our relationship with change becomes adversarial. Speaking directly from my experience, the longer I resisted accepting what was changing, the more I suffered.

Who doesn’t love a good process?

So, how would I describe my relationship with change? Truly, my entire concept of change transformed when I embraced it as a process rather than any single moment. It doesn’t arrive in any one action, word, or event. It is ongoing, and I’ve come to accept that I may not understand it in its entirety until enough time has passed for things to play out. Really, I may never know its full impact. And that’s okay.

Sometimes change feels like a loss because it is a loss. But as long as I’m living beyond any one moment, I have learned that there is more to come. And there’s at least a chance that what’s coming is better than what is, maybe even better than what was.

Accepting change as a process doesn’t make it inherently easy or positive. But it reminds me to temper my judgments, loosen my assumptions, and lean on what I know, or at least believe, to be true.

 

Continue the inquiry

Sydney Buchanan https://sydneybuchananofficial.com
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