Transitions are a special sort of gnarly, confusing beast that shows up in life. On the one hand, transition is always happening. You’d think it wouldn’t be so hard. On the other hand, no two transitions are ever alike, even when you expect them to be. Each one has its own special temperament that spices things up as you move from one stage to another. I figured it might be helpful to put together some general guidelines to help ease the discomfort and confusion of transitions. As always, these are all ideas, and aren’t prescriptive.
- Recognize the transition for what it is. It’s easy to downplay the bigness of life changes and pretend they don’t matter or aren’t hard. But they do matter, and often, they are hard. Recognizing that you’re in transition can make things easier when you find yourself utterly confused and overwhelmed. It can remind you that you have permission to not know right now.
- Make space for it. A while ago, we talked about making space for emotions, and all that applies here, too. Transitions can be tiring, so you might need extra sleep. Or extra do-nothing time. Or extra physical space, maybe away from the city and out in nature. Perhaps extra space in your schedule to allow turmoil to exist for a while, and then for all the dust to settle into whatever new stage you’re moving into. Suffocating a tumultuous time with a packed schedule can make the transition extra-hard. And that’s not what we want for you.
- Process it. I find it helpful to bring thoughtful awareness to the process of transition. Processing can happen in so many ways and depends entirely on your personal style. You can process things by discussing them with a therapist or coach, by journaling, by making art, by talking with friends, by confiding in family, by reading stories or watching movies about people going through similar transitions to your own. You can even integrate things energetically through meditation, acupuncture, reiki and so many other things. Personally, I tend to do several of these things all at once. The more support I can give myself in processing change, the better I feel during the transition, and the more ready I am for what will happen on the other side.
- Give yourself lots and lots of credit. Way too often, I downplay my accomplishments, especially when the accomplishments are mundane things that happen to everyone. I’ve found it works much better for me when I congratulate myself heartily for getting through the period of change. No matter how silly it seems, it still feels delicious to tell myself I did a good job. If I feel comfortable enough, I might also share my proudness with someone safe. It tends to magnify the warm fuzzies.
While transitions might never be as simple or effortless as we’d like them to be, we can at least love ourselves through them by being attentive, mindful and intentional. And as we practice transition in its many forms, maybe, sometimes, we’ll find ease in the midst of it all.
. . .
How do you support yourself through transition? What life transitions are you particularly proud of coming through?
Oooh, Kylie – I think you really hit it here: “It’s easy to downplay the bigness of life changes and pretend they don’t matter or aren’t hard” – seems like our culture pushes us to race through, ignore, etc…
LOVE what you’ve shared here, thank you!
This is so timely for me. Especially your first and second points. Sometimes I do this so well – and I feel SO good that I forget I’m in any transition at all – Then suddenly I’m superhuman, quickly resulting in the packed schedule & no recovery space; and then it all goes to shit.
And then I have some good reminders like this one; I pick myself up, put myself to bed (or in the bath, with Downton Abbey) and try again! Thank you Kylie, wishing you loads of space and ease and warm fuzzies through your transitions.
SO timely and lovely. I am watching 17 kiddos gear up for a transition, and transitioning myself. It’s exhausting and also kind of magical when I can get distance from it. It brings out lots of different things in people, and I have to remember that a great deal of it seems to be a layer of protection. I’m going to pick a fight with my best friend because he’s moving and I’m pissed and scared. or I am going to rush through my writing project because I’m not actually sure I’m ready for 3rd grade. Or, you know, more grown up ways… sort of.
I’m finding myself in the middle of a transition right now. I always forget how important even the smallest accomplishment is during this time.
Wow, Kylie. This is great – I loved that you talked about this particular subject and about how we often don’t give our transitions or us a lot of credit in the process. I’ve done that countless times over my life (and through massive steps in my life that took every once of energy) and now am in process of going back, thinking about them, and saying, hey that was pretty awesome that I made that transition. You write beautifully – keep it up and thank you!!
Loved absolutely every word of this piece. I’m REALLy bad at realizing that life changes have a cost to them. I’m always complaining that I don’t have enough energy — but I’ve been through so many life changes in the past few years.
Thank you for helping me let myself off the hook, trying to be so unaffected by the big things happening in my life.
It was point #1 that really got me! I am going through some huge life, personal and work transitions at the moment and I just, kind of, forgot. I was (and am) so busy managing, plotting, planning and wishing to be ‘further along’ that I totally ignored the transition stage. I denied that there even was a transition stage. Sounds dumb, I know, but very real for me.
Thanks for the very timely reminder. Because of you, I’ll be reading in the bath tonight not working until the wee hours!
Much thanks from Ireland,
Clare
Karen: You’re so welcome! I’m really glad it hit on something for some folks. We deserve time and space and permission to be in transition.
Mel: That’s the thing, though: you DO remember, once something reminds you, to get in the bath. Which is a win right there. Downton Abbey; heck yeah!
Louise: Good point about the layer of protection! I s’pose we need to give ourselves protection that’s sufficient so we don’t need to remedially protect in hurtful ways.
Ben: So important! And I’m cheering for you for all of it!
Caitlin: It is SO totally awesome! I am entirely in favor of congratulating our past selves for transitions well (or not so well) done.
Susan: You are so welcome. And this is me telling you to go ahead and be affected.
Clare: I’m pleased as punch to hear you’re in the bath! I’m entirely convinced that you’ll be more successful in getting your stuff done after a bath break, anyway. Thank YOU.
[...] “While transitions might never be as simple or effortless as we’d like them to be, we can at least love ourselves through them by being attentive, mindful and intentional. And as we practice transition in its many forms, maybe, sometimes, we’ll find ease in the midst of it all.” How to support yourself through big transitions – effervescence [...]