Catherine, Princess of Wales shows us how we can learn from seismic events - Christa Ackroyd

I genuinely believe that we can’t control much of what happens to us, only the way we deal with it. All of us, no matter who we are, will experience change. Sometimes change may be subtle, sometimes positive.

A change of lifestyle that leaves us healthier. A change of hairstyle that leaves us refreshed. A change of job which leaves us reinvigorated. All positive. Not for nothing was the phrase a change is as good as rest coined.

Sometimes change is seismic. A disaster or event beyond our control. The loss of a loved one. A serious illness, the breakdown of a relationship, the loss of employment, even the loss of our homes.

No wonder we fear it. We rail against it and often try, against all odds, to avoid it. Yet we will all experience it sometime, sooner or later.

I remember when my father died someone once told me life would never be the same again. They were not being unkind. They were being realistic. It wasn’t.

When my mother died may years later even at her great age there was the sense that all I had known had ended. Which of course wasn’t true.

With five decades together to reflect upon I try every day to concentrate on how much we meant to each other and if you believe we will meet again, we already do in those shared memories that come so easily to mind. But that in a way is the natural order. We get old and we die.

When that order is shaken, when I speak to mothers who have lost children or young people fighting incurable illness I, like everyone else, questions why? And I don’t know how they carry on.

Yet they do, often dedicating themselves to fighting for others in the same position, raising money, raising awareness and miraculously even raising a smile.

The worst thing they could ever imagine has happened to them. Yet so often it is in those moments they find their strength.

And it doesn’t matter who you are.

Last week it appeared to be a very different Princess of Wales who embarked on her first solo engagement without her husband since she slowly eased herself back into Royal duties after her cancer diagnosis and treatment. And yes it was clear to see she has changed. Of course she has.

This young woman with titles and tiaras, castles and country houses has had the most horrific time in what many would describe as her privileged life.

But serious illness, cancer in particular, doesn’t differentiate between the haves and the have nots. And she is noticeably different as a result.

The first change I saw was that she appeared more relaxed than ever before. When she ordered the Royal cavalcade to stop she got out and ran full pelt to a young girl who has been shouting “Hello Princess” at the top of her voice.

As she chatted and smiled and laughed it was clear here was a young mother glad to be alive.

Then there was the formal change. The Princess would not, said palace officials, be feeding tabloids with endless detail of what she was wearing. The message was loud and clear.

A young woman determined to be so much more than the clothes on her back, much more than the sum total of how she looks and she would ask us to consider her in a new way. And then came her message.

Almost political but not quite, she carefully trod the same fine line so deftly negotiated in the manner of her father in law, when she called for a more loving, united and compassionate Britain. Nothing controversial there.

It was when she added that modern life can leave people feeling isolated and vulnerable leading to abuse, poor mental health and addiction, that you knew what this young woman was using her newfound power for. To speak for the voiceless.

To call on governments to face the realty that it’s tough out there and that, she added “can be devastating for individuals and society”.

Laugh if you want, mock her if you dare but here is a young woman whose life was seemingly mapped out for her until she faced the real possibility that it may end prematurely and with that the realisation that she might not be around to bring up her children.

And that is the root of her change and the root of her new found power and self belief. Now The Princess of Wales is no longer happy to simply be the woman on the arm of the future king or be seen as the Royal clothes horse, but like her mother in law before her, a young woman with a voice and one who is determined to use it.

She is so right when calls for us to “reset, restore and rebalance”’. And even more prophetic when she asks us to get better at acting with compassion and empathy, building upon what connects and unites us not what divides us. And that means, she adds, getting better and stronger at coping with adversity. Or change.

Here is a young woman who knows what it is for life to hit her with a sledgehammer, now unhindered in her message because of all all she has discovered through her own journey. That above all we are all the same. And all equally in need of compassion and care.

Today I am writing from a hospital waiting room. For everyone here in this busy pre-assessment clinic life has changed. My appointment seems trivial compared to many.

Diagnosed with arthritis at 17 it could have been life changing. In a way it was. It was 30 years before someone gave it a name and added lupus into the mix and today I have a series of appointments to see how I am doing. The answer is well, very well.

But it was the very consultant I will see today that made me view what is for many a serious illness in a different light.

“Just because I have given it a name, Christa,” he said, “doesn’t mean your life has ended today. You had it yesterday and you will have it tomorrow so why not spend today making it a good day.” Useful advice?

Yes of course. Positivity is a wonderful word, an even better frame of mind, though not always easy to find when life seems to have turned against you. But it is what makes us human. Negativity destroys. Positivity gives us all a reason to hope even when life changes.

Change is a word with negative connotations. ‘You’ve changed’, is more often than not meant as a criticism not a complement.

My answer is simple. If you haven’t changed, you haven’t lived. In other words if we go through life , with all its ups and downs, turns and twists are we really living it if we don’t change along the way? If life teaches us anything it is that we cannot take it for granted.

We all know it can change in an instant. But if we don’t learn from it, if we remain the same as we always have been then, are we really listening to all it has to teach us? I believe not. That is what makes it so precarious. But also so precious.