Let Go and Be Free Podcast: Episode 24 (Accepting Change)

Change comes for us no matter if we want it or not. Some change is forced on us, but sometimes it's our actively deciding to grow.

When we're going through a difficult time of change, how can we best handle it?

Learn techniques to accept, process, and apply healthy skills to enable us to grow and thrive.

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Transcript

Welcome to the let go and be free podcast, A podcast for those who grew up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family. I'm your host, Ron Vitale, author of The let go and be free series for adult children of alcoholics. On this podcast, we'll talk about everything from dealing with ruminating thoughts, just stopping dysfunctional behaviors that you learned as a child. Together, we'll shine a light to dispel any shame you might feel about your upbringing, and learn practical tips that will help you live a healthier life. If you'd like to learn more, feel free to visit, let go and be free.com.

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the show wanted to focus on accepting change, it's gonna be a very difficult topic. And I thought it was timely as we're moving into the fall period. As I'm recording this, I wanted to focus on the importance of how change can affect us individually.

And it can also affect us in our Inter relationships within our family unit. So back when I was younger, especially, you know, in September, when I would be ready to go back to school to college, always would have a night where I'd be up late one night go out and back when I was still living at home. And I'd look up at the sky and see the cloud and see the moon and I wonder like what, what was going to happen, you know what was going to happen in the new school year what was going to happen? You know, my family life and my love life, my friends, I just did a lot of worry, a lot of anxiety about the unknown.

And if I can pinpoint that, often, you know, the core root of that is that there wasn't a lot of stability in my early family life. You know, there was two divorces, there was, you know, my father leaving us and there was things, you know, that publicly I don't typically talk about, within the family unit of let's just say a lot of negativity, anger, and not good things happening in my early years. You know, when my father was around for my, my mother and father and divorced. And so with that stress, it was always a worry in the back of my mind, like, where is it going to wind up? You know, are things safe? Is there going to be a stable environment for me? You know, there were times where I wonder, you know, was there going to be enough food on the table? Like, where were we going to live? How was this all gonna work out? You know, in the end, everything did work out.

You know, my grandparents took my mom, my brother and myself in after my mom divorced my father. And we did have more of a stable environment at that place, you know, in time, it's just the core memories that I have been little and just that fear and worry or just kind of like, burned into me. And I think at that early age, I carried a lot of weight, you know, baggage with me, as I move forward, being in a new situation and wondering, you know, would this change, be good for me, or would be bad for me and kind of worry about that are separate on that.

That's how I kind of survived and got through that difficult time. Always thinking, like one step ahead. You know, if a situation would come up, I'd be like, well, I want to have five backup, it's, I want to be prepared for the worst always for the worse, instead of thinking like, hey, this particular change might be a really good thing. It was always this change could go really badly. And it could be the end of the world, and how do I prepare for it. So it was such a different switch, you know, in my brain on thinking, you know, something could be good, as opposed to, it could be really bad. And, again, part of that was just, you know, my coping mechanisms with how I grew up.

And I know and haven't gone to other adult children and alcoholic meetings and heard similar stories from others who grew up in similar type environments, that same type of fear of fear of instability, weary about, you know, food insecurity or financial woes, you know, that that kind of stays with, you know, people as they get into their, you know, their adult life. So, one of the things that also is a is like a trigger for me is you know, financial insecurity.

There's a, you know, there's discussion of like layoffs at work or, you know, money problems or money issues, that really does get to a core bringing me back to when I was kid and wondering, where were we going to live? You know, would there be enough money? How will this all work out? And, you know, being little, you don't have all the answers to all those questions, you just could sense the fear, and the concern of those around you, or you would pick up conversations, I'd hear things from my grandfather, you know, being said, and I didn't understand how much money he had, or my mom had, or any of that, you know, I just have some memories of some difficult times. And I think I've shared this before, but I'll share it again, because it's very relevant.

I do remember, you know, being guests, I was no more than maybe 10 years old, where my mom was doing the best she could to put, you know, my brother and I through school and, you know, working trying to get a job best she could make money to be able to pay for all the things you need to, you know, raise, raise two kids, you know, my father wasn't paying anything for child support.

And I remember, there was conversation where my mom came to me, and I had been religiously saving any money that I can get into my bank account that, you know, my grandfather and uncle they give me like $1 or two me for like allowance for small little chores that I would do like around the house. And I just would take that money and save it. Back, then you had to physically go to the bank, with a physical like, banking card, like a bank book. And you give the book to the teller, and we tell the teller, I want to deposit whatever $5 or $10, in deposit the money, and they would take your bank book and put it through this like printer, it would like, literally, like spit through the printer in your bank book. And then like, you know, print out the latest balance, and then give you the book back.

And then over time I saved, it was a couple $100, you know, I've been saving for whatever a bunch of years. And my mom had come to me and said that, you know, she's going through a rough time, and she needed that money to help pay for things. So she was going to take the money out of my account. And I remember her telling me that and that really did stick in my mind, it wasn't that I was angry at her. But it really shook the instability of, you could work really hard, you can do everything you can to save by, if a bad situation comes your money issues, all bets are off. And so all that money that I had saved, you know, in my 10 year old head of like, whatever it was 350 hours, or whatever it was, it wasn't a massive amount of money. But it was something like birthday money, you know, allowance, money, all that I saved this, you know, as best I could. And, you know, my mom needed that to pay for some bills.

And that was really hard as a kid, for me to understand what was happening, you know, in the family unit of knowing, you know, I'd see my friends and how well they were doing and how they had mom and dad. And you know, that they hadn't money to be able to pay for things. Whereas I knew that I had a father and he had gone off. And we had seen him in years. And he wasn't paying any money toward, you know, any of the bills that you know, clothing and medicine and shoes, and food and tuition and all that kind of stuff.

You just wasn't paying for anything. And it was all on my mom. And you know, my grandfather was doing the best he could to be able to, you know, take care of him and my grandmother and you know, took us in so it was we may do and you know, we were we did fine. It just in retrospect, I just remember how scared I was of changing fear, anything related to, you know, money and finances and upcoming change. So when I talk about accepting change, I think it could be a very worrisome topic for many of us who grew up in an alcoholic and dysfunctional family.

Our default might be to think change is necessarily bad. You know, whatever things are going to be different. It could be anything could be a new job, a new responsibilities in a job. It could be getting laid off, it could be a divorce, your breakup, it could be any such things. The default mode tends to be for those who grew up in adult child, you know, alcoholic and dysfunctional family and went to an ACOA meetings to be able to talk about their feelings. When I heard many others share their experiences, the commonality was that fear of the unknown. Not sure what was going to come out of a particular circumstance, particular issue. Instead of thinking, Oh, I'll give this a try. Try, it was always I need to be prepared for the worst, because if the worst happens, I need to be ready for it. And that's a very difficult way to live. You can't prepare for everything, you can't prepare for accidents.

And as I shared recently, I had a biking accident, ripped my hand, you know, what do you do? Do you stay in a bubble all the time and don't go biking, don't go out at your house, don't this don't have that. But that's not going to be healthy for me either. So, you know, there is a amount of risk in anything that we do, you know, go for a car ride, there's a risk, you could be in a car accident, or take a plane trip somewhere, or be on a train walk across the street, there's always risk. And thinking that the worst is going to happen in any particular circumstance sets us up for failure.

So I think that really is my key message of not being open to change, and trying to be in defensive mode, and protective mode, all the time, limits not only the relationships that we can make friendships, because if we don't change, we don't make a risk of meeting someone new or sharing something that might be, you know, icky, or we might think shameful, with a trusted person, there's no way to grow, there's no way to change, and learn new behavior patterns, to overcome some of those past feelings and thoughts of what we grew up with.

So you know, dealing with change, change can be good, it can be indifferent. And it could also be bad, we don't really know. And I think that's part of the challenge with this type of topic is that we can try to anticipate what's going to come out of the change. But we really don't know all the different permutations of how, you know, the future is going to roll out. You know, for example, it could be you're laid off of your job. And you might think that that's the worst possible thing that could ever happen to you. But on the other hand, if you apply yourself and you know, put the work in to find another job, you might find that the new job you like, better than no job.

I definitely have had that happen to me. You know, there's that fear of like, how am I going to pay for the mortgage? How am I going to pay for bills? Oh, my God, what am I going to do, it's going to be the world. And if I allow myself to stay in that mindset, the energy that I'm using to resist, the change is being wasted. Because I can use that energy to apply myself. Maybe I can learn better resume writing techniques, or interviewing techniques. Or maybe I can have coffee with some friends, and talk about the type of job I'm looking for and do some networking, or I can attend a networking session, or career opportunities are a job fair, like taking a circumstance and looking at it only from one perspective of at all costs. I need to think of all these horrible things that could happen and be prepared for those is eliminated ourselves. Whereas to flip the switch in your head and say, Yeah, this is not a good situation, I've lost my job, or laid off fire or whatever. Now, going through a bit of a mourning processes and being concerned about how you feel about it. But then thinking, what's next? You know, what are you going to do to overcome?

What you you know, learn from the experience, you just got out, fall back into old dysfunctional behavior patterns that you learn from growing up in an alcoholic family? Are you just going to separate and just spiral down thinking like, nobody likes me? Nobody wants to hire me. Nobody loves me. Nobody. There's nobody that you know, or are you going to take the energy and focus on another, you know, another path. Granite change happens to us in many ways. Change often happens to us when we least want it to happen to us. And unfortunately, change can also be devastatingly, devastatingly painful. It can be a disease, it can be a death within your family.

These are changes that will happen that we can't control. And the more that we try to protect our control, the less control we actually have our own volition and our own lives, being stuck and not able to grieve someone who's passed on refusing to change and grow beyond a person that has passed on and, like kind of processed that grief and take their love and what you've learned with them over the time that you had with him and move on. And just one other relationships, it's a very difficult thing to do. You know, it's not something that you can do overnight.

Sometimes similar type Fox, if you're in a job for a long time, there's a grieving process if you know, the economy is up and down these days, whole sectors of society are changing, people are being laid off, I saw an article today, they said several 1000 People will be laid off at various Ford plants, as Ford is switching to more electric vehicles, that they won't leave skills of certain people. So what are those several 1000 people going to do for work, they could then think and focus on the negative and be like, what was me or after some time to be able to process and go through that grieving process of having lost work and questioning one's identity of like, does work equal who I am, no, but often we, especially as Americans, we define ourselves by the things that we do, instead of the WHO that we are, you know, it's, I'm a banker, I am a VP, I mean, this, I'm a that instead of, you're you, you're still the core you, outside of it doesn't matter what job you have, or what role you have. They're just layers of your personality.

And I think taking time to stop and think about that, and put that into perspective is extremely useful. You know, change often happens in waves of, you know, child going off to college, or, you know, maybe you have a small child and the child is going off to kindergarten, your role as a parent is going to change your role. As a spouse changes over time, your role was a friend, your role as a co worker, all these rules are constantly evolving and changing. If you open yourself up to the availability to admit to that and to be open to the chance, sometimes it's easy, because change that you want to especially if it's change that you precipitated. So if you left your job and you left for a new job is a little bit easier, because there's a choice you made, as opposed to if you were laid off, then it's a little bit more complicated and harder to be able to deal with because it's something that you might be struggling with, with that identity of, am I not good? Did they get rid of me? Because I suck? Did they, you know, do family members not love me because they're leaving, or, you know, I could have done more to help XYZ before this person died, like beating ourselves up.

And falling into that martyr mode. No, is not helpful. As part of, you know, being grown up in an alcoholic and dysfunctional family, the role that I played was hyper responsible. Yeah, so I was the oldest in the family. So I wanted to do well, everything, you know, I wanted to do this, do that take on everything, just just do everything, hold everything up. That's impossible. You set yourself up for failure for that we're burned out. Because you just can't do everything. And sometimes change is more internal, of accepting things. So for example, there could be a change of if you have members of your family who are actively still drinking, or suffering or struggling with addiction, those individuals are making decisions that are outside your choices, you have a choice to be able to set up a boundary and to change.

You could say to yourself, you know, this person is still drinking, or we're still breaking, you know, this, I guess negative energy, always kind of like trying to blame you or yell at you or bring you down, you have the option to say I don't want to continue with the relationship the way it is, you can set that boundary, one you can't change, is that easy to do? No. Often, change affects others. So I remember being in college class and interpersonal communication, family communication, and the teacher said to us, you know, he thinking of your family, as a mobile, you know, hanging over baby grid, right? And there's like, different wires with different you know, let's say stuffed animals, little tiny ones, like there's a dog, there's a bear, there's a bird, when one gets pulled, a whole mobile will shock, like the shock absorbed with changes and moving. It affects everything. Because we're all kind of inter interrelated with the family, you know, either death or sickness or injury or, you know, addiction or alcoholism. All those things affect not just the person that's going through that difficult time, but it's also affecting everybody else in the family. And then The change and accepting that change, sometimes the changes, simply and saying, This person is deciding to keep drinking, you know that you decide to keep using, you know, whatever drug of choice, and then your change your decision is I can't save them.

Now, I can't fix them, you might want to try, you might want to try to protect them, which can. And I think accepting that type of change is really difficult, especially in a family unit, especially if it's like a spouse or, you know, a child, it's, it's not something that's easy. Often, in these circumstances, think it's best to talk to a professional, go to therapy, go to an ACOA meetings, for children, alcoholic meetings, so that you can listen and hear others who are going through similar circumstances, you know, I have used the Trump steps, you know, in my life, maybe that works for you, maybe it doesn't work, maybe there's a combination of different things that will help you through particular difficult change in your life.

The reality is that we are changing all the time. The other side of the coin is, we often don't stop to think about that, we just assume that we are who we are, and just keep moving forward. Especially if we're busy, you know, I will stay the course keep, keep going forward. But not making a choice is also a choice in resisting change. So if you're not willing to have your mind open to questioning, or different role that you might be put in, and that can be a role that's forced on you, you know, maybe need to take care of a parent who has fallen ill. And that will change you know, your relationship with your parents, and also change how you interact with your goal life of like, are you working? Are you stayed on the parent or, you know, what, what are all these different interconnectiveness floating around in your life and the day to day, how do you deal with this, it is not easy.

I am a big proponent of journal writing, of taking the fonts inside my head and writing them down. Nobody else to see just myself, nobody else's business what's going on in your head, if you don't want to share that with others, you know, if you just want to have the free safety to be able to write down, you can do that on a computer, you could do it. And journal. I've shared this in the past, you know, there's times where I've done writing where I just wanted to get it out, and then just not save it. So you can just write on a computer, notepad and you're done. Don't save the file and get rid of it. Or I knew people have written letters, you know, and then taking the letter button, the letter ripped up the letter and throw the letter out. This is symbolic. I want to let go of something I want to move past something.

Change could be moving past. A bumpy relationship, difficult relationship breakup, it had many different things change affects us in life, it's not just a financial thing. It's you know, as we grow, older bodies are changing, our mental capacities are changing. Everything is always constantly in flux, and changing. I do think that some self reflection is important to kind of, you know, maybe through the seasons of your life, especially if you're in an environment where the seasons actually do change. That's a very natural way of making time to think about moving into the fall. What does that exactly mean to you? You know, where has the last year gone? In the sense of, what did you think you were going to do? What did you actually do? Are you happy with where you are?

Are you not happy where you are?

So it's it's one of those things that when I think about change, there have been times where I've resisted it because it's hard to take on, you know, things were stay longer and a job which was not helpful, not helpful to me was more toxic environment. And just try to, you know, keep my head low and down and do the work. Instead of taking a hard look and saying, You know what I do need to move on. Sometimes it's easier to think if you just ignore it or deny it, that changes are going to affect you. But it does, it does over time. It just takes you know, it takes more of a toll on you if you're actively either resenting the change or resisting the change.

Trying to be like a tree and blowing in the wind being nimble. ending is the best approach, I find, maybe you think differently. But the practical aspects of accepting change break down into there is that one, the mental process of acceptance, you know, if you're not in your head able to accept the change is coming, or is you're currently going through, you're going to either deny or resist, and that can be damaging to, you know, a circumstance might come up. And you might think, well, I don't want to accept this, that's great. And maybe that's something that you can resist. But it does warrant questioning, why are you resisting?

And are you using your energy in the right way, you know, in the in the circumstance of, if someone is continuing to drink, if you're trying to always be there for them and help that person, maybe the energy would be better spent, if you put a hard boundary line and say, you know, I'm gonna go do my thing, and I'm gonna go take care of myself. You know, as long as you keep drinking, I love you, but I can't save you, I can't keep trying to rescue, you are responsible for your own behaviors. And, you know, you tell that person that, and then for yourself, you're responsible for yourself, cannot live another person's life to try to change that. It's just not gonna work. And trust me, it was younger.

And I failed miserably, time after time. So the skills that are needed for change, you know, once you've accepted, there's, again, these practical aspects, you know, do you like to write? Do you like to take walks, so that you can think while you're walking? Do you like have conversations with people with trusted friends with therapist go into UCLA meetings, do you like to read, you can learn about different things through very small self help books, you have options that you can basically apply the process of the change into, I guess, an acceptable way for you to be able to kind of like thrive, instead of resisting, being argumentative, challenging everything, that's not going to help you in the long run. What those skills and coping techniques are, and whether they're healthy, or dysfunctional, all falls into an individual, you know, aspect. So, again, going back to the parent, adult child versus within your head, you know, the, I don't want this change to happen, I don't want to lose my job. That's the child aspect of like, why why why complaint, or any parent might say, Well, I'm just going to do everything I can to make sure that this goes well.

And I'm going to make certain that I'm not the one that's laid off. It's more of the authoritative, you know, this is what we're going to do what the adult voice might say. So it helped me that I stay here this job, is it better that maybe I start looking for another job, you know, and again, I'm just using employment as an example. It could be a relationship, it could be anything. Again, you know, some of the things that we are having to deal with, with change, are beyond our control. sicknesses is the big one, and the injuries and accidents of how that happen. It's not fun, you know, cancer affects you or your family. You can't wish it away. Thursday, coming to terms with a change in your body, and learning how to accept the fact that you're now on a different path, and you need to find out, what are you going to be able to do before you're gonna give up? Or are you going to put into practice the various skills and positivity to be able to fight back against disease and do everything you can to get your, your yourself better and healthy? It's, we are mortal.

You only have so much time on this planet. We don't know how many days, years, months, decades, we just don't know. And, you know, the change that is constantly going around us in society, in politics, in ourselves and our families. It's, it's constant. It's always happening. And I think taking some time, kind of pulling back a little bit and understand that change is okay. You know, that we can, you know, learn and thrive and do well with change. It doesn't have to be the end of the world doesn't have to be a trigger of oh my god, this change brings back all these memories when I was a kid and all these horrible things that happened to me. Oh my god, same things gonna happen.

How am I going to deal with this? It doesn't have Be that way, it's a choice that we're making. Because it's allowing us to are separate, and not have to think about the change that we're wearing and spending our energy elsewhere. Whereas, focus in and do acceptance, and then put into practice different skills we can learn from the process becomes stronger, and thrive. Is that easy to do?

No. But it's also not possible. It can be these tiny little steps, built over weeks, built over months, and be able to help us, you know, through that process through that change. But I do hope that this episode has been helpful for you know, I can say this, personally, dealing with the injury from biking accident, fracture cam, audio bruise like it's, it's taken me longer to heal than I would like. But that's the reality of the change that I went through one split second, brought in from I was doing all these runs, you know, athletic runs per week, was doing close to 18 to 20 miles a week running. Now I'm down zero, as I, you know, heal and feel better.

And I'm accepting that temporarily, there are limitations of what I'm able to handle. But that doesn't mean that it's always going to be this way. And doesn't mean that I can't use the time for other things. Writing is podcasting, meditation, mindfulness reading, and trying to spend more time and remain, yeah, to kind of learn things that I just haven't made time for, because I was, you know, being active in other ways. So there's, there's a way that we can accept the change, or resist it. I hope that as change is coming and affecting you in your life, that you will take some time to kind of process it, really see what you think about it, and then take some steps to move forward so that you can embrace the change, even if it's something that is a difficult one. So thank you, again, for listening to this episode. I appreciate it. If you want to support this podcast, feel free to subscribe on substack.

Let go and be free.com. There's also links there for purchasing of the four volume books to let go and be free in all the major platforms. It's, you know, I really do enjoy recording this podcast and I'd like to keep it going. I'm trying to do my best to get enough funds to pay for the website hosting and for the podcast hosting. So any support that you can send my way. I sincerely appreciate it. And if you're not able to financially, even going into like iTunes, leaving a great review, you know, for the podcast that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. So thank you again as we move on for this week, and I hope that this episode was helpful for you and as always Be well.

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