The Seasons, Change, and Your Emotions
Jun 24, 2025
Saturday was the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere and the first day of winter in the southern. That makes this a good time to think about change.
I’ve been thinking about change a lot lately, as I’ve been house-hunting and packing things in my current home. As the child of a career military man, packing and moving is something I’ve done a lot of, yet I still found myself feeling anxious about nearly everything, when “anxious” is a feeling I rarely have anymore. One day a dear friend said something that made me stop and really think about why I was so out of sorts. I realized that the change I was preparing for and excited about was the very thing that was stressing me out.
Most of us don’t like change very much. Even small deviations from what normally happens are distressing and disorienting to us. Have you ever seen someone driving down the road with the gas cap dangling and the little door over it open? Chances are, something interrupted the refueling process, which interrupted the steps in the process of refueling, causing that person to miss the step of putting the cap back on and closing the door.
We learn in patterns, and much of what we do each day follows a step-by-step pattern. Our brains like to run patterns, and they board the struggle-bus when the patterns are disrupted. Think about your own morning routine and how tough it is to add something to it. For instance, maybe at some point in your life you wanted to get some exercise each morning or start a meditation practice first thing each day. Whatever it was, do you remember how many mornings it didn’t happen? Maybe it finally clicked and you’ve successfully changed the previous pattern, or maybe you tried and failed so many times that you just gave up. Breaking old patterns and creating new ones is literally re-training your brain, which takes time, patience, and determination.
That’s why change can be so tough.
We don’t notice the official change of the seasons because the weather changes and day length changes come gradually. Going from standard time to daylight saving time, however, isn’t a gradual shift and it’s pretty difficult for many people. A rise in the incidence of heart attacks, traffic fatalities, and suicides occurs each year in the seven days following the shift from standard to daylight saving time.
That’s a stark illustration of just how hard it is for humans to handle change.
If you’re in a change-filled season of your life, just remember to give yourself the same patience and grace you’d give to a friend or loved one. Change is hard. Change is also good.
Now, back to crunching numbers and packing boxes, while remembering to breathe deeply and repeat those seven words: Change is hard. Change is also good.
Wags,
Sandy Weaver
The Voice of Wagaliciousness
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