W

While some of life’s changes are

celebrated, others – like breakups, losses

and redundancies – can be crippling and

throw us into despair. With life comes

both the good and bad, so learning

how to tackle change with a powerful

combination of tough questions and

gentle self-care is not only helpful, but

absolutely necessary.

WHAT WE’RE FACING

The biggest changes we face usually

involve family and relationships,

work and career, and loss and trauma,

says psychologist and life coach

Sacha Crouch (qiyoga.net). Any one

of these changes can throw up big

questions that we may not have spent

much time thinking about before,

along with a barrage of intensely

unpleasant emotions.

Suffering the loss of someone or

something we love can even shake

us right to the core, causing us to

question our beliefs and re-evaluate our

perspectives on life. “Something changes,

and suddenly people have to work out

who they are again, how they want to

spend their time, and who they really

want to be,” says Crouch. “There are

often really difficult emotions to deal

with, like sadness, regret, guilt and anger,

and those emotions might be all over

the place.”

CHANGE AND BIOCHEMISTRY

During stressful times of change in

our lives, we can be deeply affected

by high levels of the stress hormones

cortisol and adrenalin, says Dr Adam

Fraser, a biomedical researcher and peak

performance consultant (dradamfraser.

com). There are many ways that

these hormones manifest physically:

Suffering the loss of

someone or something

we love can even

shake us right to the

core, causing us to

question our beliefs

and re-evaluate our

perspectives on life.

CREDIT: AVI RICHARDS

naturalhealthmag.com.au AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HEALTH | 65