Like waiting for a shot at the doctor’s office, we sit with anticipatory anxiety about what is next. Anticipatory anxiety is like brain-freeze without the pleasure of eating heaping spoonfuls of Haagen-Dazs or downing an icy margarita first. We can’t think, all we can do is sit and wait for the gripping feeling to pass. Under that icy cap of our minds, we imagine that life after (insert your specific change here) will be wholly different, wholly unfamiliar, and that we will be wholly unprepared for those unknown challenges. Why do we sit with anticipatory anxiety about what’s next? Well, since we have no actual data on how the change will be — given that it hasn’t happened yet — we do what we can to bide the time.
Is there a better way than to be the deer in the headlights in suspended animation as we close the page on one chapter on our lives and haven’t yet penned the new one?
Yes: Know how transitions work.
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