Moving Through Change with Less Anxiety: What My Own Season of Change Taught Me
This past year, change wasn't something I read about or talked about with clients. It was something I was living.
In a fairly short stretch of time, I navigated the sale of my house, and three moves, including helping my partner move across the country for work. Back-to-school season arrived with all of its usual demands. My practice grew, which brought a new office, new systems, and a new member of our team. Each of these changes was meaningful, and many of them were good. But together, they added up to a season where very little in my life felt settled.
If you've been through something similar, you'll know that even welcome change can leave you feeling unsteady.
Why Change Makes Us Anxious, Even When It's Good
Our nervous systems are wired to find comfort in the familiar. Routines, familiar places, and predictable rhythms help us feel safe, even when we don't notice them. When several of those anchors shift at once, our bodies can respond as if something is wrong, even when the change is one we chose and wanted.
That's why you might feel restless, irritable, tired, or on edge during a period of transition, and wonder why you're not simply feeling excited. Both can be true at the same time. You can be grateful for what's coming and still grieve what you're leaving behind.
The Instinct to Let Things Slide
Here's something I noticed in myself, and something I see often in my work: when life gets busy and overwhelming, the first things we tend to let go of are the very practices that keep us well. Sleep gets cut short. Exercise feels like one more thing on the list. Meditation feels like a luxury. Meals become whatever is quickest.
It makes sense. When we feel stretched, we try to make room by dropping whatever seems optional. But those practices aren't optional. They're what give us the capacity to handle everything else.
Why I Chose to Double Down
As a therapist, my own well-being isn't only personal. To be truly present for my clients, I need to be grounded myself. So during this season, rather than letting my self-care fall away, I made a conscious decision to double down on it.
For me, that meant prioritizing four things:
Sleep: protecting my bedtime, even when there were boxes to unpack or emails to answer.
Movement: getting my body moving most days, even if it was just a short walk.
Meditation: taking a few quiet minutes each day to settle my mind and notice what I was feeling.
Eating Well: making sure I was fuelling my body with nourishing food, rather than running on whatever was closest.
I'll be honest: there were plenty of days I didn't want to do any of it. Some mornings, the last thing I felt like doing was meditating or heading out for a walk. But I did it anyway, not because I felt motivated, but because I knew these practices would help me move through this season with more steadiness and less anxiety. And they did.
Gentle Ways to Steady Yourself Through Change
If you're in your own season of change right now, here are a few things that may help:
Identify your anchors. Choose two or three practices that help you feel most like yourself, and treat them as non-negotiable, especially when things get hectic.
Let action lead motivation. You don't have to feel like doing something for it to help. Often, the good feeling comes after we begin, not before.
Keep it small. Ten minutes of movement or three minutes of breathing still counts. Consistency matters more than intensity.
Make room for mixed feelings. Excitement, grief, relief, and worry can all live side by side. None of them means you're doing change wrong.
Reach out. Talk to your partner, a friend, or a therapist. Change is easier to carry when you're not carrying it alone.
Change is inevitable, but feeling completely unmoored by it doesn't have to be. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do in a season of upheaval is return, again and again, to the simple practices that keep us well.