Coping With Life Changes You Never Chose
Some changes are decisions.
You change careers. Move to a new city. Begin a relationship. End a commitment. Start something new.
Other changes happen to you.
A diagnosis arrives.
Someone dies.
A relationship ends.
Your health changes.
A job disappears.
The future you were expecting suddenly isn’t available anymore.
Those changes create a different kind of question:
How do I move forward when I didn’t choose any of this?
Laura Bratton knows that question personally.
As a teenager, Laura began losing her sight because of a rare eye disease. Doctors initially believed the progression would be slow.
It wasn’t.
By the time Laura graduated high school, she had no usable vision beyond light perception.
But in Episode 86 of UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth, Laura doesn’t tell a polished story about overcoming adversity.
She talks about grief.
Denial.
Panic attacks.
Depression.
Identity.
Faith.
And what coping with life changes actually looked like when the life she expected disappeared.
Coping With Life Changes Starts With Acknowledging Loss
When we think about grief, death is often the first thing that comes to mind.
But grief can accompany any significant loss.
Laura wasn’t only losing her sight.
She was grieving independence as she understood it.
Expectations.
Plans.
The ability to do ordinary things the way she’d always done them.
Even simple tasks had to be relearned.
That’s emotionally exhausting.
And Laura initially responded with denial.
If she didn’t acknowledge what was happening, perhaps she wouldn’t have to deal with what it meant.
But reality eventually demands recognition.
One of the important lessons in Laura’s story is that moving forward didn’t begin by pretending the loss wasn’t painful.
It began by admitting that it was.
Coping With Life Changes Doesn’t Mean Suppressing Emotion
Laura talks about grit, but her definition matters.
Grit isn’t:
Suck it up.
Stop crying.
Pretend everything is fine.
Ignore what happened and keep moving.
Instead, grit makes room for emotional honesty.
Something happened.
It hurts.
You’re angry.
You’re afraid.
You’re grieving.
Acknowledge it.
Validate what you’re feeling.
Then ask:
What does moving forward look like today?
That’s a very different understanding of resilience.
You don’t have to deny grief to keep moving.
You don’t have to pretend you aren’t scared in order to act courageously.
You don’t have to eliminate sadness before taking the next step.
Sometimes courage and grief exist in the same moment.
When “God, I Can’t” Becomes the Prayer
Laura grew up deeply involved in church.
Church wasn’t an occasional activity. It was woven throughout her family’s life.
But losing her sight forced a distinction between being surrounded by Christianity and personally depending on God.
During some of her hardest nights, Laura didn’t have polished prayers.
Her prayer became:
“God, I can’t.”
Three words.
No explanation required.
She couldn’t fix what was happening.
She couldn’t force herself into the future she had expected.
She couldn’t make the disease disappear.
And eventually, that inability became part of a more personal relationship with God.
Coping With Life Changes Can Trigger an Identity Crisis
Major loss doesn’t only change circumstances.
It can change how we see ourselves.
Laura had to confront questions about identity and value.
Who am I now?
What can I contribute?
What happens to my worth when I can no longer do things the way I once did?
Those questions aren’t unique to disability.
Retirement can produce them.
Job loss can produce them.
Divorce can produce them.
Parenting transitions can produce them.
Illness can produce them.
Grief can produce them.
We can attach identity so tightly to a particular version of life that when circumstances change, we assume our value changed with them.
For Laura, recognizing herself as a beloved child of God became foundational.
Her abilities had changed.
Her circumstances had changed.
Her value hadn’t.
Support Doesn’t Always Sound Profound
Laura’s story also demonstrates how important other people can be when someone is rebuilding.
Her brother provides a particularly interesting example.
He didn’t suddenly treat Laura like she was fragile.
He continued treating her like his little sister.
That normalcy mattered.
Sometimes when someone experiences a major loss, we’re so afraid of saying the wrong thing that we either disappear or start treating the person differently.
Laura’s experience suggests another possibility.
Be present.
Listen.
Help when help is needed.
But don’t assume the person suddenly stopped being the person you knew before the loss.
Support doesn’t always require the perfect words.
Sometimes actions communicate it better.
Three Ways to Help Someone Coping With Life Changes
Laura offers practical guidance for people who want to support someone experiencing grief or unwanted change.
First, listen without immediately trying to fix the situation.
Many painful realities cannot be fixed by a conversation.
The person may need somewhere to be angry, afraid, sad, or confused without someone rushing toward a solution.
Second, remind them that they still have value.
Loss can make people question what they contribute, particularly when the loss changes their independence, work, relationships, or abilities.
Third, ask what they actually need rather than assuming.
Support is personal.
One person may need practical assistance.
Another may need companionship.
Another may need space.
Another may simply need someone willing to sit beside them without forcing the situation into a positive lesson.
Coping With Life Changes Through Gratitude
Gratitude plays an important role in Laura’s story, but there’s a distinction worth protecting.
Laura isn’t grateful that she became blind.
She doesn’t believe she has to be.
That’s important because gratitude can become harmful when we use it to invalidate grief.
Someone loses something significant and immediately hears:
Look on the bright side.
At least you still have…
Everything happens for a reason.
Those responses can unintentionally communicate that the person’s grief is inconvenient.
Laura discovered another form of gratitude.
She could grieve blindness while being grateful for the people supporting her.
She could wish her circumstances were different while recognizing resources that helped her.
She could acknowledge what she’d lost while noticing what remained.
She began writing down three things she was grateful for each day.
That practice didn’t erase blindness.
It helped widen her perspective beyond it.
You Don’t Have to Be Grateful for the Loss
This distinction deserves its own space.
You can find gratitude within a painful situation without being grateful for the painful situation.
Those aren’t contradictions.
You can hate the diagnosis and love the people who showed up.
You can grieve the relationship and appreciate what you’re learning about yourself.
You can wish the job hadn’t disappeared while recognizing unexpected support.
You can miss someone deeply while being grateful for the years you had together.
Gratitude doesn’t require rewriting painful circumstances as good.
It can simply help us recognize that pain isn’t the only thing present.
The Meaning Behind Harnessing Courage
Laura eventually wrote Harnessing Courage.
The title has a physical meaning connected to her guide dogs.
The harness creates a connection between Laura and the dog helping her navigate the world more independently.
Receiving her first guide dog represented much more than getting assistance.
It meant movement.
Independence.
Possibility.
The title also captures something deeper about courage.
Courage isn’t necessarily a personality trait some people possess and others don’t.
Sometimes it has to be practiced.
Harnessed.
Used.
Especially when fear remains.
Moving Forward Isn’t One Decision
We often tell stories of adversity around defining moments.
The moment everything changed.
The breakthrough.
The decision.
The victory.
Real life is usually less tidy.
Laura didn’t decide once to move forward and never struggle again.
Moving forward became a repeated choice.
Sometimes it meant something significant.
Sometimes it meant getting through the day.
Sometimes courage was attending school.
Sometimes it was making a phone call.
Sometimes it was admitting what she felt.
That’s important for anyone coping with life changes because enormous challenges can make us believe our response needs to be equally enormous.
It doesn’t.
Sometimes you need the next step.
Not the next five years.
Pain Changed How Laura Shows Up for Others
One of the results of Laura’s experience is her ability to sit with other people’s pain.
Not fix it.
Not rush them through it.
Not immediately find the lesson.
Sit with it.
That’s a skill many of us struggle to develop.
Someone tells us they’re hurting and our instinct is to solve.
We offer advice.
We search for explanations.
We try to make them feel better.
Often because their pain makes us uncomfortable.
But some pain needs witnesses before it needs solutions.
Sometimes the most meaningful thing another person can communicate is:
I’m here.
Coping With Life Changes One Step at a Time
If your life has changed in a way you never wanted, Laura’s story doesn’t offer a formula for making the loss disappear.
That’s part of why it matters.
Her sight wasn’t restored.
The difficult thing actually happened.
And she still built a life.
She became a pastor.
An author.
A speaker.
A coach.
But none of that required pretending the loss wasn’t real.
Laura learned to hold grief and gratitude together.
Fear and action.
Loss and value.
Pain and faith.
That’s a more useful picture of resilience than pretending everything eventually stops hurting.
So if you’re facing a change you didn’t choose, perhaps the question isn’t:
How do I get my old life back?
Maybe that life isn’t available anymore.
Instead, ask:
What does moving forward look like today?
Not forever.
Today.
Maybe it’s getting out of bed.
Calling someone.
Asking for help.
Admitting you’re angry.
Making an appointment.
Eating.
Praying three honest words:
God, I can’t.
Then taking the next step anyway.
Because circumstances can change dramatically without changing your value.
As Laura says:
You are enough.
Listen to Episode 86 of UNMASKED
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@Unmasked-WF-Podcast
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/3eHboKDDsxejrxdbH9cRfS?si=5fdb90f80c1e4062
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unmasked-with-wesley-farnsworth/id1851549420
Connect With Laura Bratton
Website:
https://laurabratton.com
Learn more about Laura, Harnessing Courage, her speaking, coaching, and additional resources through her website.
Connect With Wesley Farnsworth
Website:
https://wesleyfarnsworth.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/UnmaskedWFPodcast/
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/unmaskedwithwf
