If you find that you’re often filled with anxiety when facing change, it may be time to seek professional help. Your primary care physician (PCP) should be able to provide you with referrals to a mental health expert, or you can start your search on an online directory like Choosing Therapy. A therapist can help you explore your fear of change and find ways to overcome it.
The main reason people fear change is that it forces them to step outside of their comfort zone. They might feel as though they’re not good enough for a new job, or they don’t have the money to take a vacation they’ve been dreaming about. The feeling of not being good enough leads to self-doubt, which can keep you from trying new things and keeps you from growing as a person.
There are many reasons that people develop a fear of change, and some of them are more serious than others. For example, if you grew up in an environment that was tumultuous or full of abuse, you might have developed a worldview that assumes all changes are dangerous and filled with bad outcomes. This type of irrational fear is called metathesiophobia, and it can be paralyzing and debilitating.
A fear of change can also stem from a sense of control issues. Many people find that they’re naturally programmed to want to be in control of their surroundings, so when they’re faced with a change they don’t have the power to affect, it causes them stress and anxiety. This is a type of fear that can be hard to overcome, but you can work on shifting your mindset and accepting that everything that happens is a part of the universe’s natural progression.
Another way to combat your fear of change is by practicing mindfulness, a technique that can help you focus on the present moment and learn to accept uncertainty. A hypnotherapist can help you get to the bottom of your fears by finding the root cause and overriding them with positive thoughts.
It’s also important to remember that most of the time, a fear of change is only triggered when there’s a significant amount of uncertainty involved. For instance, if you’re about to start a new job, you might not know much about what your responsibilities will be or who your coworkers will be. This can trigger a fight-or-flight response in your body, which can lead to a brain freeze that makes it difficult for you to think clearly or engage in conversation.
The best thing you can do to overcome a fear of change is to seek out help and get support from family, friends and a therapist. You can then work on building resilience, cultivating optimism and a positive outlook, and putting systems in place that will make it easy to stick to your new life path rather than retreating to your old one. This will make it harder and harder to retreat, and eventually, you’ll find that it’s easier to face your fears than avoid them.
