Transitions: Part One

Some cities are simply abandoned.

Pripyat, near Chernobyl in Ukraine, is one of them. Following the nuclear disaster in 1986, its residents were evacuated. They left behind their homes, schools, shops and playgrounds. The city remained, but the life within had gone.

Pompeii suffered a different fate. It was buried beneath volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. For centuries, the old city lay beneath the earth. Eventually, life returned to the surrounding area and a new town grew nearby.

One city was abandoned. Another was buried, uncovered and lived alongside.

People respond to disaster and disruption in similar ways. Sometimes we walk away from what has happened and begin again somewhere else. Sometimes we rebuild our lives among the ruins. The emotional footprints may be different, but the process of transition follows a remarkably familiar path.

When the other bank disappears

We usually think of change as an event. A marriage ends. A child is born. We lose a job, accept a promotion, move house, retire or receive a diagnosis. Something happens and the circumstances of our life change. Transition is different. It is the inner journey we must make in response to that change.

Sometimes we launch ourselves willingly into the stream. At other times, life simply pushes us in. Either way, once we find ourselves in midstream, we may discover that the landing place on the opposite bank is no longer where we expected it to be. We look back, but the dock we left has collapsed.

And so we flounder for a while. This is the uncomfortable territory of transition: the old life has ended, but the new one has not yet properly begun.

The writer and consultant William Bridges described transition as having three distinct phases:
1. An ending
2. A neutral zone
3. A new beginning

This sounds simple enough. But living through it is anything but simple.

The pain may not be the same, but the pattern is

The person receiving a major promotion may experience uncertainty, disorientation and even grief for the position left behind. The person who has lost a job may feel some of those same emotions too, although the practical and emotional consequences could be far more severe.

Newlyweds and the newly divorced are certainly not experiencing the same event. Neither are new parents and recently bereaved partners. It would be foolish, perhaps even cruel to suggest that their pain is equal. But beneath these very different circumstances lie a similar pattern.

Something has ended. There is a period of uncertainty and confusion. And then, slowly, a new life begins to emerge.

This is one of the strange truths about transition: even the changes we welcome can unsettle us. The promotion we worked so hard to earn may leave us missing the competence and certainty we once enjoyed. Retirement may bring freedom, but it can also take away identity, routine and purpose. Moving into a new home may be exciting while still requiring us to mourn the comfort and familiarity of the old one. The only constant may be change, but that does not mean we become particularly good at it.

The threshold

Every meaningful transition contains a threshold, a point beyond which there is no real turning back. The old job belongs to somebody else. The children have left home. The relationship is over. The business has closed. The person we loved has gone. And in my case a sponsor found new interests. Even if we return to the old place, we return as a different person.

This is where mourning becomes necessary.

We not only mourn people. We mourn identities, routines, expectations and imagined futures. We mourn the person we believed we were and the life we thought we would have. Every transition begins with an ending. Before we can begin again, we must let go. Both inwardly and outwardly. That becomes difficult because our inner lives do not immediately keep pace with our outer circumstances. We continue moving to an old rhythm even though the music has changed.

The result is dissonance.

Intellectually we may understand that something is over. Emotionally, some part of us continues resisting the truth as though our life depends upon it. Perhaps in some ways, it does. The old identity is fighting for survival.

The season between seasons

We are often impatient with that middle stage. We want the ending to lead directly to the beginning. We want to close one door and find another conveniently standing open. We want certainty, direction and a sensible plan. But life rarely works so neatly.

In autumn first the leaves must fall. Then comes the baron winter. Only after winter does spring arrive. Our life transitions are as natural as the changing of the seasons.

The neutral zone is our winter. It is the space between what was, and what will be. It can feel empty, confusing and unproductive. We may even find ourselves returning to old activities in new ways, looking for fragments of the person we used to be.

There is a temptation to rush through this period. We grab at the first job, relationship, project or identity that promises to remove the discomfort. But the neutral zone is not wasted time.

This is where the inner work of transition takes place. The old identity is being dismantled and, often without our noticing it, the foundations of a new one are being laid.

I find myself in such a season now.

Over the past year, several familiar structures in my own life have shifted. Work, home, identity and purpose have all required another look. Some changes were chosen; others arrived without asking permission. I am finding greater clarity, but clarity did not arrive fully formed. It emerged slowly from uncertainty. I suspect even after more than a year there is still some way to go.

Perhaps that is why I want to explore transition in this series. Not as an expert standing safely on the opposite bank, but as someone still making his way across the stream.

The larger questions

Think back over the past year. Have your relationships changed? Has your home life altered? Has something shifted in your work or finances? Have you experienced a physical, emotional or spiritual change? Have you become uncomfortable in a life that once seemed to fit?

Beneath these practical changes, larger questions are still waiting:
Why is this happening to me?
Why now?
What am I being asked to leave behind?
And what might I be trying to begin?

These are uncomfortable questions. They are also deeply human ones. Over the coming weeks, I want to explore the three stages of transition: the ending, the uncertain space in between, and the eventual new beginning.

But we must start where every transition starts.

With what has ended.