Training Your Mind to Be Open Enough to Accept Change

Wolfgang Nowak, the German Economist once said, "Everybody wants change and at the same time, everybody does everything so that things don't change".

Change has always been something human beings have been scared of because it represents future and future is unknown and in our minds unknown is something to be scared of. While training our minds to accept change there are three things that everyone should know about change and they are:

1. Change is an emotional experience

2. Change equals loss and

3. Acceptance requires planning

First let's talk about change being an emotional experience. Whenever one thinks of change there are certain feelings attached to it, which can be either positive or negative. But the fact remains that when one thinks of change one does feel something. It could be anger, fear, happiness, sadness, or it could be depression or stress or whatever but the chances are that you felt something. All that you felt was nothing but your emotions. That was your reaction to change.

That brings us to second point and that is change equals loss. In our minds change is associated with loss. It can be anything loss of friends, work, home or relatives. When one thinks about change, loss is foremost thing that comes to their mind. If someone you love dies then there will be changes in your life. If you are moving to different place then all your old friends will be left behind and your life will change. But the fact remains that in the both the cases you lost your near and dear ones in order to experience change.

This brings us to the third point and that is acceptance requires planning. You can not plan death yet if your family member or your friend who has been critically ill then you can prepare yourself mentally for their loss and a subsequent change. However, there are cases when the change is abrupt. You don't have time to react and in those cases you have to be strong and keep a positive frame of mind in order to accept change.

Now that we know enough about change we need to know that in order to train our minds to accept change we need to acknowledge the fact that there are two types of minds: Conscious mind and subconscious mind. When we understand the relation between these two minds then only we will be able to train our minds to be open enough to accept any change gracefully.

Sub conscious mind is the one which generates automatic thoughts and automatic thoughts are those which come to us naturally without any effort from our part. Usually these thoughts are negative and they tell our brains that a particular thing is not good for us. In this instance change, so basically we have to train our sub conscious mind to have positive thoughts about change so that our conscious mind accepts the change as a positive sign from the Almighty above.

Keeping a positive frame of mind may prove difficult especially if the change involves going to another country leaving friends and family behind. However as I said earlier acceptance requires planning hence one can keep a positive frame of mind by concentrating on making plans about the future.

You can also concentrate on things you want to take along with you, what you want to leave behind or sell. If your things are in good condition you can plan a boot sale or a garage sale that will take off your mind from change and will make you feel better. Another way you can keep a positive frame is by inquiring more about the place that is if you are going to another place.

In the end one should remember that nothing in this life is constant except change. Change is the only thing is constant.