Transitions are the inner psychological and emotional shifts that accompany the physical changes that happen in our lives.
Because they are associated with change, these transitions can often seem difficult. But they become easier to handle once we realise that our whole life has been a series of transitions — and every one has helped us grow.
Our first transition happened on the day we were born. Our mother’s contractions signalled the ‘Separation’ phase that prepared us for the changes that were coming. Then, during the birth itself, we crossed the Threshold into a strange new world. And over the next few days, we Consolidated our transition by learning the incredible new skills of breathing, seeing, and eating. Even more incredible, we did all these things automatically, without consciously controlling any of them.
Since then, our lives have been an almost constant stream of changes and transitions: learning to feed ourselves; learning to dress ourselves; going to school; riding a bike; learning to drive; getting our first job; getting our first promotion. All these things seemed difficult at first. But as we succeeded in each change, and processed the internal transitions that accompanied them, so we grew up and matured: gaining new clarity about what matters most to us, new skills for achieving that, and new confidence in our ability to do so.
This time of churning that we are living through is bringing us more changes than we are used to, faster than before. But if we remember the skills and opportunities that came out of the transitions we have lived through in the past then we can learn to see each new change and transition as an opportunity: to become clearer about what matters most to us and more able to achieve that.
With this attitude, each transition we experience becomes our friend: another step along the path to becoming the person we most want to be. Or as David Bowie put it, towards becoming “the person you should have been all along.”
Have you experienced any changes or transitions lately? Did you find it easy or difficult to handle them? Would you like to navigate your next set of changes and transitions faster and more easily, and use them to become stronger and more inspired?
Adapted from The Churning, Inner Leadership: a framework and a set of tools for building inspiration in a time of change.
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