Something’s in the Air
Jobs. Relationships. Living situations. Finances. Health.
I don't know about you, but I've been seeing and hearing a ton about transitions lately. Whether it's people in one of my groups or retreats, in my coaching practice, shifting tides with a client's organization, or just in a conversation with a friend, colleague, or stranger—transition seems to be afoot.
It's not exactly surprising, is it? We've all been through a lot the past two-plus years. I'd make a list, but I don't need to. You know exactly what I'm talking about, I feel pretty certain about that.
The pressures of those two years have created kind of a perfect storm for things to move and shift. Of course, it's the only constant, isn't it? Change, that is.
Perhaps it's just confirmation bias, but it seems to me that the kinds of transitions that I'm seeing folks encounter these days are quite disruptive. Lives will look different on the other side of the transition than they did going in. The day-to-day experience will be different—in ways that are difficult, if not impossible, to predict. That is, of course, the nature of change.
I often say that in my work, I tend to work with folks who are at the threshold of transition. There's a reason that I use that term—threshold. Looking at the dictionary definintion of the word, you have to go a few deep to get to the meaning that I hold:
A piece of wood or stone placed beneath a door; a doorsill.
Either end of an airport runway.
The place or point of beginning; the outset: on the threshold of a new era.
When we stand at the threshold of transition, the only thing we can fully know is that what came before, what our lives looked like up to this moment, is likely to melt away. We will find ourselves in a new experience of one sort or another (often in muliple ways) soon enough.
There's really no way to fully understand what this means at the outset.
If our career is upended, finding our way can mean coming to a completely new understanding of who we are. If our marriage is disolving, we're going to have to learn how to navigate the world from a place of "former" or "ex". This is, of course, even trickier when there are children involved, as some part of us has to stay in relationship with that former self. I could go on, but I'd just belabor the point. Transitions are places of transformation—at least, they can be.
One of the things that's unfortunately all too common is folks trying to bypass these phases of their lives.
We want to keep moving forward, as if nothing has changed for us.
As if the thing that's turning our life upside down is just a minor inconvenience that's not having a direct impact on our core self.
I think there are a few reasons for this.
One is that to allow ourselves to fully occupy a transition is to live in a place where we feel super ungrounded. We don't have a sense of having our feet beneath us.
Another, which is related, is that certainty goes right out the window. To truly be in transition means that we don't know what's coming, what we will like or be good at, even who we are.
And last (well, probably not last, but the last thing I'll say here) is that we're usually in a space where we are being forced to learn something new—about ourselves, about our relationships, about the world. In otherwords, it's fucking uncomfortable.
So, what does it mean to navigate this? What does it mean when we don't want to try and force our way through or to bypass a transtion we are navigating?
It's a good question. I wish that there were simple answers to it. I do think there are things we can do, things that help us to develop the muscles we need to move through transition. I'll share a few here in the form of some questions.
. . .
Who are your people?
Are you someone who tends to try to “go it alone?” No worries if you are, it's pretty common in our very individualistic culture. That said, when we are in the free-fall of a transition, I'm not sure there's anything more grounding than the people in our lives we can turn to in the trickiest of times.
I'm not talking about people who will try to help us bypass, or tell us that "everything will be fine." I'm talking about the people with whom we can completely fall apart, whose arms we can be held in, and who will still be there when we reemerge, with a whole new lease on life. And maybe some new perspectives.
Do you have some of those people? They're keepers for sure.
What's your capacity for discomfort?
I don't know about you, but it's taken me some time to develop my capacity to be in discomfort. In fact, there are a plenty of ways in which my capacity for discomfort is still pretty low.
That said, transitions and discomfort go hand-in-hand, meaning I if I want to learn and grow, I should probably get used to being uncomfortable. Of course, that doesn't mean liking it. It doesn't mean seeking it out. It simply means that in order to navigate what's happening for me, and to not try to bypass it, I need to have some capacity for it.
All the more reason to know who my people are—for they are the ones who are going to be there for me when it's the hardest to stay with it.
What's your relationship to grief?
I'll be honest, when I started thinking this through, this was the first question that came up for me, and it surprised me. Then I started thinking more about the transitions that have happened in my life, and it hit me—transition always requires letting go. And letting go is hard.
This is even true when the transition is a good thing in our life (and, yeah, a job loss or a divorce can be a good thing. So can a wedding, or a new career, of course). Any time we step into transition, we will be called upon to let go of some part of ourselves. And within that letting go will be grief.
If we think of grief as just being about when someone close to us dies, we will miss the point. I've got more to say about this, and will write about it one of these days. If you’re curious now, check out the work of Francis Weller.
. . .
So many of the people that I’ve been encountering have swelled with emotion when we’ve gotten close up the the transitions that they are working to navigate. There’s often a lot moving within them. I wish that there were easy answers to how we navigate these transitions, and get to the other side. Unfortunately, there aren’t. But we can get through them. Of this I’m certain. It takes a village, and it takes some work (sometimes a lot of work), but we can get there.
If you see yourself in these words, hang in there friend. Let me know if there’s something I can do to help. And reach for your people. You’ll be glad you did.
