Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes

 

 

William Bridges only reluctantly started writing this book when he was going through a period of change himself and found that there were no guides to transition. To his surprise, Transitions found an immediate niche and has sold over a quarter of a million copies. It is quietly passed from one person to another.

The depth of the book is that it is not just a manual on “how to cope,” but gets us to see that the process of disorganization, death, and renewal is fundamental to nature and a central theme in mythology.

Rather than stability, this cycle is the natural state of affairs. We all intuitively know this, but Bridges says that admitting it to yourself, and looking more closely at the process, will make the inevitable times of change easier to deal with.

 

One of the interesting things about transition is the way it descends on us unexpectedly. Many women and couples have a hard time dealing with the loss of time and freedom that accompanies a newborn baby in their lives, for example. Before they can enjoy the marvel of the child, they have to deal with the ending of their old, less restricted life.

A man came to one of Bridges’ group meetings on dealing with life transitions who had recently received a big promotion. His family were now getting everything they had wanted, but psychologically he was finding it hard to deal with. Why? We all have our patterns of living and in a way it doesn’t really matter whether we were happy with them or not—when they change there is a loss. Even a musician toiling away in small clubs for years who suddenly finds herself a star or a lottery winner will need a time of adjustment.

The morale is: Focus less on whether an event is good or bad, but whether or not it involves an important change of life for you. And don’t be worried if the event seems relatively inconsequential; it may merely be the most obvious symbol of change, when there are deeper rumblings in the psychological ground beneath.

 

It can be useful to see transition within the context of a larger life journey. Many social scientists see age 30 as a key turning point, a moving from youth to real adulthood, where in the past this point was 21. Men come to Bridges and say, “I seem to be entering old age and have barely got out of adolescence!” The fact is that transitions happen throughout our life and don’t necessarily correspond to a set age.

Bridges discusses the myth of Odysseus and his long journey home through many trials and tribulations. Though a great leader, Odysseus found that he had to unlearn many of the ways he had dealt with life in the past. One of the messages of transition is that we can’t be the same person doing the same thing all our life. When you are young you imagine that from age 30 until death life is one unbroken plain of stability. However this is rarely so, and if life seems too settled you either choose to make changes or have them forced on you.

Following is a rough outline of Bridges’ three stages of transition, which follow the “rites of passage” identified by anthropologists and evident in the most tribal rituals.

 

To have a new beginning you need to acknowledge an ending. It is universal practice among traditional peoples that when one of their number is about to undergo an inner transition they are taken out of their normal daily life. In our times of change we may feel this need for dis- engagement from our normal experience.

This can be followed by a sense of disidentification, when we don’t know quite what know who we are any more. The old motivations are gone. Another stage is disenchantment, the point when we realize that how we saw the world was not a very good reflection of reality after all. This can be the first stage of transition, but also the last, as it flat- tens the ground for a new beginning and way of seeing the world.

We all have different styles when it comes to coping with an ending, but each ending may reawaken old hurts or feelings of shame. If you were made to feel unworthy as a child, each seeming failure in later life will bring acute pain as you are reminded of perceived unworthiness. Although they sometimes feel like it, endings are not the end of us. In tribal cultures they are ritualized so that the person sees an ending not as something final, but as a necessary stage to bring new life.

 

We usually want to escape as quickly as possible from this uncomfortable time after the shock of an ending. It could, however, be one of the most valuable times in your life, when because you have been “broken open” you are also ready to consider other ways of being and doing. Bridges has some suggestions for your time in limbo:

 

Make sure that you find time to be alone. Welcome the emptiness. Go somewhere with few distractions where you can do literally nothing, but don’t expect any great revelations. The point is to pay attention to your dreams and thoughts.

Keep a diary or log of your neutral-zone experiences, or write your autobiography. Give yourself the chance to “rewrite” your life story.

Try to discover what you really want, what your purpose for living may be. If your life ended today, what you do feel you should have done by now?

 

Many of the great figures of history (St. Paul, Mohammed, Dante, Buddha) saw the need to “go into the woods” or the desert. Your intention may not be to save the world, but be reassured that humans have been going into retreat, and needing to do so, for thousands of years.

 

How do we know when the neutral zone can be left behind? When do we make our great new start? Beginnings can often only be seen in retrospect—they don’t seem impressive at the time. We meet someone who ends up being our spouse at a party we didn’t want to go to, we happen to open a book at a friend’s place that changes us for ever.

When we are ready to move on, opportunities will appear and it will be an exciting time. But be easy on yourself and maintain at least some form of continuity with your old life. Fresh with your insights from limbo time, don’t be too disheartened if things don’t move as quickly as you would like. Bridges recalls the Zen saying, “After enlightenment, the laundry.”

 

If you have experienced a significant transition, whether it be a divorce, going back to university, or starting a new career, a common feeling is that you are going “back to square one,” that all the previous years have been wasted. You are likely to think, “Maybe I should have stayed doing what I was doing—it wasn’t that bad, was it?”

Hopefully, Bridges’ book can be a support and a motivator, because it shows us that transition is not the end of everything but a cyclical process whose ultimate reward is a sense of direction much clearer than you have had before. The author quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “Not in his goals but in his transitions man is great.” If you can become skilled at getting through difficult periods, you will feel much more confident to cope with life generally.

This classic may not seem attractive right now, but try to remember it when you next start to feel that a period of stability is coming to a close.

 

Formerly a professor of English, Bridges shifted to the field of transition management in the mid-1y70s. He now works as a consultant and lecturer, developing transition strategies for large companies such as Intel, Apple, and Shell.

Other books include the bestsellers Jobshift, Creating You & Co, and Managing Transitions. His most recent work, The Way of Transition, was written in response to the loss of his wife, Mondi. He lives in Mill Valley, California.