Steady Through Change
Practical footing for a season of transition.
- Written by Brett Larsen, MA, LPCC-S
- Grounded in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- 12 minutes to read, tools you can use today
A move, a loss, a new role, an empty house. Transitions are hard even when they are good. This guide offers a way to think clearly when everything is in motion, with exercises for the decisions that cannot wait and the grief that can.
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Open the guideOr call Brett: (513) 204-9295If everything changed at once
- On paper you are fine. In practice you are not sure who you are this year.
- Decisions that used to be easy now take days.
- You feel guilty for struggling with something you chose.
- Everyone has moved on and you are still catching up.
Clear thinking while the ground moves
Understand why it feels like too much
Why several changes at once overload even steady people, and why that is a normal response, not a weakness.
Sort what you control from what you do not
A CBT exercise that takes twenty minutes and usually removes half the noise.
One steadying routine for thirty days
Small, repeatable anchors for the weeks when nothing else is predictable.
Room for the grief in a good change
Permission and a method for mourning what ended, even when what began was your choice.
The approach has a track record
Nothing in this guide is a hunch. It is the same Cognitive Behavioral Therapy work Brett does in the room, trimmed to what you can start on your own.
Major life events, including positive ones like marriage or a new job, are measurable stressors, and several close together compound the load.
Holmes and Rahe, Social Readjustment Rating Scale, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 1967, and decades of follow-up research.
Structured problem-solving, separating what can be changed from what must be accepted, reduces distress across a wide range of life stressors.
Bell and D’Zurilla, meta-analysis of problem-solving therapy, Clinical Psychology Review, 2009.
Brief, focused approaches produce meaningful improvement for adjustment difficulties, often in a small number of sessions.
Kim, meta-analysis of solution-focused brief therapy, Research on Social Work Practice, 2008.
12 minutes, start to finish
- 01
Why transitions overload steady people
- 02
The control sort: twenty minutes, one page
- 03
Deciding what cannot wait, and parking what can
- 04
Thirty days of anchors
- 05
Grieving a good change
- 06
When a season needs more than a guide
Written for people who
Are in the middle of a big change, chosen or not
Feel fine on paper and unsteady in practice
Want steadiness now and a counselor later if needed
This guide is educational and is not a substitute for counseling or medical care. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.
Brett Larsen, MA, LPCC-S
Brett has been a licensed counselor for 24+ years, holds independent licenses in clinical counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy, and completed 3,500+ psychiatric assessments in a hospital emergency department before opening this practice. He sees adults in person in Cincinnati and by secure video across Ohio and Kentucky. The guide is written the way he talks in session: plain, practical, and without judgment.
