In transition

I am continually blessed by being given the opportunity to watch people grow at close range. I don’t only mean my own circle of friends, but by the many soul-filled sessions of talks I have had with people through the decades who come for their soul destiny readings. I meet them only in points of their transitions, and this is why they come to try to get some clarity. I am blessed because when being with them, I am constantly challenged to reflect the insights into my own life to process this as wisdom that later will be shared again.

There are my CEO professionals in transition from leaving high-paying jobs to not having clear plans of what happens next; to people having ended relationships, to those who feel there is a person they can start a relationship with. There are those who move through the dark nights of spiritual questioning when they are at their financial bottoms; or the trauma of a spouse leaving the relationship while watching the foundations of his or her marriage break apart.

Neither here, neither there. It is that “in-between” stage of two phases of life, two situations. Of a phase where something ends and we are unsure of how to proceed to the next level. Be it in relationships, work, life stages such as puberty, pregnancy, menopause, in traumatic moments of separation, divorce and death, these points of transitions are moments that bring turmoil to mind and body.

We look to whatever tools we can get our hands on, relying on the built-in mechanism to survive, take on some form of control of our lives and attempt to heal ourselves. Sometimes transition phases take longer than we expected and we are exhausted on the various levels of body, mind and emotions. When it seems like this phase is taking forever, I believe it’s also because we need to seriously look at what stops us from flowing through it. At deeper introspection, we would be able to identify a part of us wanting to control the unknown future… and herein, the emotion of fear, presides. Fear comes in its various nuances of anxiety, doubts, frustrations and despair.

There are many types of change that impact different personalities with different capacities to react to the changes happening in their life. Some transition phases may be trifle such as waiting for that expected interview for a new job you so badly want or deciding to move on from a job that holds no meaning anymore. Other transitions may be associated with significant life events — pregnancy, menopause, retirement, separation and a death of a partner.

Such transitions can change someone’s approach towards life or surrounding environment and that requires radical restructuring of the their view about themselves and their world. In other words, consciousness is forced to change — either expand in understanding, deepen in awareness, or rise with clarity to the lessons being shown through the psychological stress during transition phases.

I was recently helping a friend going through a transition… of a longtime marriage that is rocking at the core. Her question, “When will this end?” And there was no answer I could give her except to say that the relationship was being forced to go into this phase, which was forcing them both to look deep, deep inside themselves to see the weaknesses of the marriage stemming from the weaknesses in their own characters.

The transition spaces in our lives are like the suspension bridges that allow us to sway in the wind. We can try to move through with fear or with the focused awareness of every step, every breath, every thought of fear transformed to rise to the challenge of the moment. We can move through this transition also with the lightness of acceptance and surrender, to embrace a deeper wisdom that the perfection of life, the universe and God’s plan is carrying us through.