Coping with Loss, Change and Uncertainty

Change is an inevitable part of life and over the course of a lifetime, we will all experience several significant life transitions.  Some of these will be initiated and planned for and others will be totally unplanned. In this feature, Kim Morgan looks at how we can help ourselves, and others, to manage the big, small and inevitable changes which life throws at us.  

When I studied psychotherapy as a young woman, I just didn’t ‘get’ the profession’s preoccupation with endings.  Only later in life, when I had experienced changes and loss, did I grasp the importance of change, loss and endings in our lives: 

Change is unavoidable  

 We all go through changes during our lives – some initiated by us, some thrust upon us.  Even apparently positive changes can bring a sense of loss.  

Every loss is unique to the individual – there is no hierarchy or scale of awfulness for losses.  

Change affects our sense of identity 

When we experience a significant change – to our relationship status, career, finances, or health – we may feel we have lost a part of ourselves and our sense of who we are. 

Our response to loss is probably a learned behaviour 

We first experience losses as children – pets dying, schoolfriends shunning us, unrequited first loves.  We may be told, ‘Keep busy’, ‘Move on’ Big boys/girls don’t cry.’  ‘Plenty more fish in the sea.’ 

We then give our adult selves the same messages when we lose something. 

Acceptance of uncertainty 

Accepting that we can’t ever be 100% certain about anything, and learning to embrace the uncertainty of life, will help you to live more effectively in the moment. 

Coping with endings  

Endings, like beginnings, are times of transition which can evoke a complex set of feelings for what is being left behind, and for what the future might hold. 

Find ways to acknowledge and express your feelings – unacknowledged pain doesn’t just go away.   

If you are supporting others in times of change, let them acknowledge their feelings about all aspects of the situation – the good, the bad and the indifferent.  Listen – without providing ‘solutions’ or finding silver linings or trying to rescue.  

If you are a coach or a people leader, pay as much attention to the ending of every coaching or work relationship as you gave to its beginning.