Change is always connected to an effort. It requires the energy to adjust or to move into the unknown.

When something changes in our surroundings or our situation, we have to let go of our expectation that things will stay as they are, and we have to mourn what we had. The sensations that come along with this process can be very subtle sensations just as well as overwhelming. When it’s subtle it just appears in small sentences like a reminder of how quickly the day passed by. In other situations, emotion can suck us in.

In any case, it requires adjustment to the new situation and adapting to the loss of what was present previously. And looking forward requires imagining how the new situation can be embraced and what it brings that one may want to step into.

When triggering change, oneself, it requires stepping into the unknown. Whatever was before will not be as it was. What we seek to achieve comes with an uncertainty of success. It’s a change that requires embracing risk, however small or big it may be. Depending on the perceived risk, it will take time and work to let go of what has been cherished until then, that is to mourn it. It also requires the effort to imagine why the change is so interesting that the risk can be embraced.

Resisting these efforts is what makes change so difficult and why it takes time.

Conversations on change are there to support the processes of mourning and imagining.