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Impermanence is a natural part of life.
Emotions come and go. Reality changes. Our relationships and our bodies do not stay the same. However much events or everyday troubles may upset us, everything is temporary.

“Don’t worry, it will pass.” There is some truth in that. But more often such words become a way to distract ourselves or to reduce contact with what is happening. They leave no room for real presence and do not help us understand the process of change more deeply, and so they bring no relief.

In a number of modern psychological approaches, impermanence is considered with particular care.
Emotions, thoughts and bodily sensations are fluid and changeable. Mindfulness teaches us to notice this at the level of breath and body: how tension comes and goes, how the breath becomes shallow or deep. This is not merely observing thoughts, but living through experience. ACT compares experiences to clouds and waves: they come and go, and we can stay beside them. Compassion-focused therapy shows that recognizing change, in ourselves and in others, brings gentleness and attentiveness rather than suppression.

Here the difference between understanding and awareness matters.
Understanding is knowledge: “emotions change,” “everything passes.”
Awareness is the joining of knowledge with bodily and emotional experience. We can understand logically that everything is temporary, that life is finite, that one day we will die. But to become aware of this means to live through the feelings that arise on touching this reality: anxiety, fear, sadness. Awareness of impermanence is not just agreement with the facts, but living through these difficult emotions.

In other words, understanding is like looking at a road map. Awareness is walking those roads, feeling the climbs and descents, the wind and the path underfoot. Meditation shows this very clearly: every breath, every change in the body is a chance to notice and feel the change, without trying to stop it.

Recognizing impermanence does not make us happy. But it creates space for gentleness and presence. It lets us experience our states fully, without denying them. It is not a promise that “everything will be fine,” but a sober view: everything that happens to us is changeable and temporary.