Transitions are the inner psychological and emotional shifts that accompany the changes in our lives.
Because they are associated with change, these transitions can often seem difficult. But they become easier to handle when we realise that our whole life has been a series of transitions — and each one has helped us grow.
The first transition happened on the day we were born. Our mother’s contractions formed the ‘Separation’ phase that prepared us for the changes that were coming. Then, during birth, we crossed the Threshold into a strange new world. And in the first few days of life, we Consolidated our transition by learning the incredible new skills of breathing, seeing, and eating. Most incredibly, 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; getting our second job. All these things seemed difficult at first. But as we succeeded in each change, and processed the internal transitions that came with them, so we gained new clarity about what mattered most to us, new skills for achieving that in the world, and new confidence in our abilities.
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 arose out of the transitions we 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 becomes our friend: just another step along the path to becoming the person we most want to become. Or as David Bowie put it, becoming “the person you should have been all along.”
Have you experienced any changes or transitions lately? Did you find handling them easy or difficult? 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 tools for building inspiration in times of change.
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