Change is one of the most common topics discussed in talk therapy. Whether it’s the end of a relationship, the death of a loved one, economic challenges, medical issues, or a natural disaster, the adjustment of having to go from the way things were to the way things are is a common source of stress. There’s even a clinical diagnosis for this: Adjustment Disorder (that’s 309.0, with various F-code specifiers related to symptoms like depression or anxiety, for all you Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fans out there).

We know change is hard. We don’t like to change. It’s not in our nature as human beings. We’re evolutionarily programmed to avoid change, going all the way back to when our ancestors huddled in dark caves, happy to be relatively safe from the mystery and danger outside.

However, eventually, there was one intrepid soul among them who wanted more, who thought he could do better, who felt like there was a brighter future out there outside the cave. So he ventured out into the unknown. What happened to him? Nobody knows! He could have found a great new cave in a much nicer neighborhood, or he could have been eaten by something big and furry with sharp teeth. The rest of the cavemen were left to pass their status quo-loving, safety-seeking, change-avoiding genes down to future generations.

Even though it’s been thousands of years since those early humans huddled around a fire, ruled by the difference between the warmth and safety of home versus the dark, scary mystery of “out there,” we still carry in our DNA some of the survival mechanisms developed by our ancestors. Here, we focus on the fight-or-flight response. This examines the feelings we have when confronted with a threat: Do we confront it, or do we run away?

These feelings........

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