Change Management in Stress Cure

We are going to explore in this article the way change affects people and how they tend to respond to such a stressful situation, based on the habits they have developed all their lives. Today, we hear a lot about self help programs, personal growth and we see people turning to therapists and psychologists in order to find answers to their problems.

The thing is that all these methods are just coping mechanisms used for helping us when the input coming from the outside world seems to be too much to handle at times. People have what is called a threshold that, in contact with the environment, feels challenged; the outcome of this confrontation is what we identify as stress and chaos.

Also, the confrontation results in suffering and feelings that people think they cannot cope with. This happens due to the fact that we develop in time a mental map containing habits and thresholds towards everything that surrounds us, and this mental map is identified with our own selves. The big news is: when this map is challenged and it fails to cope with the new input, another map, better than the previous, develops within ourselves.

When the map we have is attacked by the new input, we feel like we are the one pushed over our limits. We wrongly identify the map with ourselves, which is the main reason why we are trying so hard to protect it, while resisting to novelties. Actually, this map is just a tool that acts as a guide into the outside world, without defining us in a meaningful way. This must be kept in mind, as along the way, while doing, acting, thinking and so on, we tend to identify the tool with much more.

The intense feelings we experience during change are based on this conviction, that the map is who we are. Another important issue is that the origin of these feelings exists inside the map and its main deficiencies, and that is why change is so important.

All that we talked about so far may seem just mere theory. That is why we are going to see how this model of thinking applies to real life and how people developing dysfunctional behaviors in front of change can cope easier with it.

The first rule of thumb is to acknowledge the situation with all that is worth. When the map is changing, chaos ensues. First the map we have is challenged by the new situations occurring in our lives, then the process of changing the map begins, while being accompanied by chaos and stress. Once you tell yourself that chaos is a given and you need the new map so you can handle change better, you are on the right track. Actually, the chaos you experience is a good symptom that announces the appearance of the newer and better map.

Several problems may appear in this stage of evolution from one map to another. As long as you recognize and admit that you are in a chaos state, and that this is only an interlude while reaching out for a positive change, everything is ok. But many people fail to see that they are stressed and they experience chaos. This happens because they prefer to ‘treat’ their stressful thoughts with other cures instead of opening their eyes and see what is really happening. It seems so much easier to reduce stress, by smoking, drinking, having sex or performing other activities that release adrenaline, but they are not working on the cause, whatsoever. After these episodes, they are bound to experience the same stress over and over again, without gaining anything. These people should see chaos and stress as opportunities to evolve to a new improved stage in their lives.

The second mistake that people tend to make when feeling stressed is to project these annoying, uncomfortable feelings into the outside world. Instead of searching for answers within themselves, they search for answers in the world that surrounds them, blaming their families, their jobs, their partners, the climate changing or anything else for how they feel. But the truth is not there, so the problems cannot be solved by blaming others.

The real cause of stress is the threshold we all have that is pushed by the new input beyond its capabilities. By raising the threshold higher, we succeed in coping with the novelties and the stress will lose its power over us. Actually, when the cause is cured, there is no other reason to feel stressed about.

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