How I Use Meditation To Accept Change [Anicca]

I’ve meditated through the most painful moments. The moments that tear through your plans like a storm through glass. The kind that make you sit on the edge of your bed, numb. The kind that pull someone you love out of your life before you’re ready. When my father died young it rocked me to the core. Meditation was my refuge.

And I’ll be honest. It wasn’t easy. During difficult times, meditation isn’t some tranquil little ritual that makes it all okay. It’s a gritty, breath-by-breath practice of staying when you want to run, softening when you want to fight, and letting go when every cell in your body wants to hold on.

I’m going to discuss with you how I’ve used meditation to accept changes in life that straight up nuked my very existence. And along the way we’ll also discuss The Three Marks of Existence because they are essential when it comes to acceptance.

The Problem: Change Hurts Because We Cling On

Most people dislike change, but change itself is not the issue. The issue is that we resist change by clinging (upadana).

You lose your job, your partner leaves, a relative passes away ajd although you know you can’t stop the change from happening there’s this primal part of you that grips tighter. It screams, “No. Not this. Not now.”

When my father passed I fought so hard to deny reality because there were so many things left unsaid. But that resistance to change, that clenching, that in itself intensified my grief.

Resisting. Clinging. That is the cause of suffering. And it’s not just emotional—it’s physical. You feel it in your chest, your stomach, your throat. A resistance to what’s already happened, as if your body is trying to reverse time. For me when my dad passed it was like I was trying to bring him back to life by refusing to accept that he had passed.

Three Marks of Existence

In Buddhism, this is the territory of the Three Marks of Existence, visceral truths that show up when life stops playing nice:

Anicca – everything changes.

Dukkha – trying to make things permanent causes pain.

Anatta – there is no fixed, unchanging self to protect.

Mark	Pali Term	Meaning	Practice Insight
Impermanence	Anicca	All things are in constant change and nothing lasts forever.	Observe change in breath, sensations, and thoughts without resistance.
Suffering	Dukkha	Attachment to things causes dissatisfaction and suffering.	Notice clinging and soften your grip when discomfort arises.
Non-Self	Anatta	There is no permanent, unchanging self at the core of experience.	Watch how your sense of identity shifts moment to moment.

When you sit with these “marks”—not read them, but sit with them—they stop being ideas. They become tools. Anchors. Doorways. The keys to accepting change.

Why It Hurts: We Want Life to Stay Still

We want the good stuff to last forever. We want the hard stuff to end on our terms. We want to know who we are, and have that identity stay neat and intact.

But that’s just not how life works.

Let me tell you what it’s like when you finally face that truth. You’re on the cushion, heart racing, grief churning, and your thoughts are screaming: “I can’t do this. I don’t know who I am anymore.”

And then something small shifts.

You breathe. You feel the sensation of breath—just breath. You don’t fix the grief. You don’t fix yourself. You just stay. And in that staying, you begin to see: Nothing here is permanent. Not the grief. Not the identity. Not the thought saying you’ll never be okay. When I realised this I sighed the most heartfelt sigh of my life, because I realised, with both sadness and relief, that the fight I was in to hold on to my dad and the amount of grief I was feeling, even that would pass.

And that is what Buddhists call anicca, impermanence. Not just that everything changes but that the pain we feel because of the change, that itself will change to, even though at times it might not feel that way.

How To Meditate To Accept Change

1. Recognise Anicca — See Impermanence in the Body

Every meditation is a masterclass in change if you let it be. Watch your breath. It shifts constantly. Scan your body. Sensations come and go like weather. Even your attention wanders. Nothing stays. And that’s the truth that saves us.

Sit. Breathe. Keep it simple. No difficult techniques here. Choose one anchor—your breath, the feeling in your hands, a sound. Watch it rise. Shift. Fade. Don’t force it. Just observe. Say gently in your mind: “This is changing. This is passing.” You’re teaching your nervous system to witness change without panicking. You’re practicing letting go in real time.

3. Recognise Dukkha — the ache of wanting things to stay.

Recognise Dukkha, which is often misinterpreted as “suffering” but in fact is the constant friction between how things are and how you wish they’d be. You’re in a beautiful moment, and a whisper in your head says, “I hope this never ends.” That’s dukkha. You’re in pain, and another voice says, “I shouldn’t be feeling this.” That’s dukkha, too. It’s the tension of craving permanence in an impermanent world.

Find the discomfort. Don’t avoid it. Go to it. Maybe it’s tightness in the gut. A thought looping. A feeling of being lost. Name it softly: “This is wanting. This is pushing away. This is pain.” Then breathe. Not to fix it. Not to transcend it. Just to stay. Eventually, you’ll see: the suffering is not in the change—it’s in the fight.

5. Recongise Anatta (Non-Self)

This one breaks the brain if you’re not ready. But if you’ve ever looked in the mirror after a huge life change and whispered, “I don’t know who I am anymore,” then you’ve already met anatta.”

There is no fixed, unchanging “self” behind your eyes. What you call you is always in flux: memories, emotions, roles, preferences, habits. And when life strips one of those away—your job, your partner, your youth—you panic because the story collapses. I definitetly felt this one when my father passed. He had been such a big part of my life that it totally challenged how I saw myself. But the miracle was that even though what I thought of as “Me” had been shattered, I was still there, I still existed.

You’ve changed a thousand times and survived every version.

Practice watching the Self flicker

Sit and observe sensations. Then thoughts. Then emotions. Ask gently: “Is this me? Is it permanent? Is it controllable?” Watch how your identity morphs based on mood, memory, or tension in your back. You’re not erasing yourself. You’re seeing through the idea that you were ever solid. And that’s where freedom begins.

One great exercise for this step is self inquiry.

A Moment to Let It Land

Let this breathe. This isn’t a lesson you cram. It’s a truth you absorb.

So try this:

1. Sit with eyes closed. Feel your breath.
2. Bring to mind a real change you’re struggling with.
3. Notice the sensations. Don’t chase thoughts—just let the body speak.
4. Say: “This is changing.” “This is dukkha.” “This is not who I am.” Breathe. Let go of the story, just for now. Let the moment be what it is. That’s how change starts to lose its teeth.

What Happens When You Keep Practicing

• You stop bracing for life to go wrong.
• You stop needing certainty before you act.
• You stop trying to hold everything together.
• And something wild happens: you become more alive. Not because life stopped shifting, but because you stopped trying to pin it down.

Final Thoughts

If you’re in the thick of it—if life is falling apart faster than you can process—pause here with me.

You’re not broken. You’re being reshaped.

Not in some poetic, Instagram way. In the way iron bends in fire. In the way identity melts when you lose what once defined you.

This is what practice is for. Not to make you perfect. Not to make you calm. But to give you something real to hold when everything else is slipping.

Dont meditate to escape. Meditate to stay—with the mess, with the grief, with the unknown. That’s the practice: showing up, again and again, even when it hurts.

Change is coming. It always does. That’s not a threat—it’s the rhythm of life. But you don’t have to meet it swinging. You can meet it open.

The Three Marks of Existence aren’t rules for spiritual people. They’re truths for anyone learning how to live:

• Anicca reminds you that nothing lasts—and that’s what makes this moment precious.
• Dukkha shows you that clinging causes pain—so you learn to loosen your grip.
• Anatta whispers that you’re not a fixed thing—so you’re allowed to become someone new.

You don’t solve these truths. You breathe through them. You ache through them. You live through them. And you emerge—maybe still raw, but undeniably changed. Softer. Braver. Truer.

Paul Harrison is a meditation teacher with 20+ years of experience and a deep passion for helping others. Known for his empathy and authentic approach, he’s dedicated to guiding individuals and teams toward mindfulness, clarity, and well-being.

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