Adapting to Change: When Plan “A” Doesn’t Work Out

We can become more skillful at adapting to change. When plan “A” doesn’t work out, we can create another plan. Every moment offers an opportunity for us to turn toward our informal mindfulness practice to create a greater sense of peace, ease, happiness, and wellbeing..

Intentional Living

Living mindfully and intentionally doesn’t mean that life always goes the way that we want it to. Living intentionally does mean that when we create intentions and take action, if things don’t work out, we can practice acceptance to support us in adapting to change and then decide if it’s wise to adjust the plan.

One of my Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) online course participants recently emailed me in response to one of the home practice assignments. The assignment was to practice acceptance. She asked if it really was that simple. Well, yes. And no. Simple yes. Easy? Not always. I encouraged her to try to remember that it’s a practice, and that the more we practice, the more skilled we become at it.

Most of our informal practice mirrors formal meditation practice. In awareness of breathing practice, which is a concentration practice, we rest the attention on the breath, try to notice when the attention wanders, and then bring it back to the breath.

Practicing Acceptance

Practicing acceptance, or any of the other principles of mindfulness, is quite similar. We practice bringing awareness to the moments in which we notice that we want things to be other than they are. We then attempt to adjust our perspective to apply the principle of acceptance. We rest in the refuge of acceptance, and when the mind wanders back to wanting things to be otherwise, we bring the mind back to a perspective of practicing acceptance. You can read more about acceptance in my previous post on Practicing Acceptance.

As we gradually, or sometimes instantly, come to accept how things are, we can then move toward inquiring, “Now what?” When plan A doesn’t work out, sometimes we simply need to accept that our intention didn’t work out, create another intention, and begin taking action toward the new intention.

Wishing you peace, happiness, and wellbeing,

Jen