Transitions

Making Sense of Lifes Changes

by William Bridges Copyright 2004 by William Bridges. Published by Da Capo Press, a subsidiary of Perseus Books LLC 194 pages

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Take-Aways
A change is an alteration in your external circumstances. Transitions are the major milestones that mark your path through life. All transitions include three phases: letting go of old patterns, a neutral zone of exploration and a new beginning. Ancient societies helped people navigate life transitions with rituals. You must let go of the past to accept the future. Your self-image consists of your roles, your relationships with others and your life circumstances. Couples in transition often discover untapped inner resources in themselves and their partners. Your dreams, hopes and plans change when you do. Do not spend too much time planning for a new life stage. Just do it. When youre ready to change, new opportunities will appear almost magically.

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Relevance
What You Will Learn In this Abstract, you will learn: 1) How transitions differ from changes; 2) How ancient societies handled transitions; 3) Why you should go through transitions in stages; 4) Which three components characterize every stage of a transition; and 5) How to make transitions less painful. Recommendation In 1970, William Bridges, an English professor, was experiencing a difcult time in his life. A scholar, he decided to learn all that he could about the psychology of transition. Eventually, he taught a course in it; then he developed his ideas into a book, which quickly became the denitive source on the topic. Psychologists, counselors and other mental health professionals recognized it as a breakthrough self-help text. With insights, information and concepts that youll be able to apply to everyday life, Bridges leads you through an often angst-ridden process. With his advice, youll identify and understand your personal development timeline and learn to use change to your advantage. Transitions, ultimately, result in achieving real growth, both spiritually and psychologically. getAbstract recommends this classic book to people anticipating or in the midst of professional or personal turning points.

Abstract
Changes and Transitions Ancient societies intuitively recognized and honored major life milestones, such as the all-important move from childhood to adulthood. Todays traditional societies, similar to the ancient ones, often mark the process of maturation with what Dutch anthropologist Arnold van Gennep called rites of passage coming-of-age rituals in which youth enact death and rebirth. Rites of passage often involve taking a new name to symbolize a new identity. Unfortunately, todays societies rarely mark life transitions the way the old ones did even though people continue to experience them.
A transition is not simply a change. A change is a modication of your external situation. Its meaning is clear. You go on a diet and lose weight. You leave one job and take another. You pack your belongings and move to a new city. You get married.
Americans have always been in transition. Whereas Old World families trace themselves back to a place, New World families originate in an act of migration.

Without a transition, a change is just a rearrangement of the furniture.

In contrast, a transition is an internal reorientation. It is primarily psychological in nature, and it requires adapting emotionally to new circumstances. Its nature and boundaries are not obvious. Transitions usually involve painful, blind groping from a settled phase of life to a new, unknown and even threatening situation. They require you to give up old, comfortable ways of doing things or interpreting experiences and to nd entirely new ones. Today, constant change is a fact of life. People easily manage the move to a new job or home, or even a new relationship or lifestyle. But they get into trouble during lifes transitional periods. They may not even recognize what is happening to them. All they know is that everything suddenly seems up in the air, an experience that can be deeply unsettling. Transitions always include a disconcerting sense of in-betweenness. They are difcult and painful, and they proceed in three stages, which you experience in an order that may seem backward: the end, the neutral zone and the new beginning.
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Every phase of life hasa task, and failing to complete it satisfactorily means that you make the transition into the next phase accompanied by unfinished business.

The End The rst stage is the end of the good old days. You must let go of comfortable patterns and habits, which can be difcult and frightening. After all, you have established yourself in your familiar world. It is where you live. In it, you know how to get things done. Moving from what you know toward something you dont seems crazy. Indeed, for many, reconciling themselves to an ending is excruciating. They ercely hang onto their old ways. Nevertheless, accepting transitions is the only path to personal growth.
Most endings involve these ve Ds: 1. 2. 3. 4. Disengagement Separating yourself psychologically from the old status quo. Dismantlement Gradually changing your behavior patterns. Disidentification Letting go of your old identity or social role. Disenchantment Discovering the flaws in your assumptions about yourself or others. 5. Disorientation Losing the motivation to pursue your former goals. The poet Robert Frost described this as becoming lost enough to find yourself.

It is frightening to discover that some part of us is still holding on to what we used to be, for it makes us wonder whether the change was a bad idea.

In Transit The neutral zone is like crossing a street; you cant safely stay in it for too long, but you must go through it if you want to get to the other side. To do the work of the neutral zone, you must rst surrender to it and accept a return to primal chaos. You may experience frightening personality disintegration. However, it is also a time to recover from burnout and to store up new energy, as a plant does during its winter dormancy. Ultimately, you gain a new, wider perspective and some spiritual distance from petty life concerns.
In many traditional rites of passage, adults lead each youth to a lonely stretch of desert or forest, where the youth must remain long enough to experience the loss of old connections, identity and even reality. These periods of solitude evoke feelings of emptiness and loss. Young people surrender their childhood, which, until that point, was the only reality they knew. The neutral zone is a time of distress, confusion, emptiness and loss. Modern societies have little understanding or appreciation of it. They view emptiness as the absence of worthwhile activity. Therefore, many people have great difculty during this stage. Many eventually end up taking a little time away to reorient themselves the contemporary substitute for going off into the wilderness.

Our whole way of being the personal style that makes you recognizably you and me me is developed within and adjusted to fit a given life pattern.

There are ways of facilitating transitions, and they begin with recognizing that letting go is at best an ambiguous experience.

A Fresh Start The boundary between the neutral zone and the new beginning is not necessarily clear. The new phase doesnt go on like a light bulb, with the ip of a switch as much as you might wish it would. A new beginning is like a rebirth, and many people who nd themselves in this phase look for psychological obstetricians who can get us out, whack us on the back and get us functioning again. But just as doctors now realize that birth is not a mechanical process, you must understand that beginning a new life phase is not automatic.
The new beginning can take the form of a new relationship, project, place or even way of thinking. It is usually accidental, not planned. Indeed, most people in transition dont know that theyve reached the end of one phase of their lives and begun another.
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One way or another, most people in transition have the experience of no longer being quite sure who they are.

To recognize a new beginning, pay attention to subtle inner messages and signals. Often, these take the form of sudden, eeting urges to go into business for yourself, or to return to college. Sometimes they come in dreams which the ancients wisely trusted more than modern people do. Your mind uses dreams to prepare you for something new. These signals may make you feel defensive. Thats your psyche trying to protect you by avoiding endings and change. Distinguishing between a new beginning and your defensive responses can be difcult. You may think youre exhibiting a brand-new behavior pattern, when, in fact, youre desperately trying to maintain an old way of relating or thinking. For example, a man whose marriage was coming apart thought he was doing his wife a favor when he reorganized the kitchen for her, moving everything around and labeling the cabinets. For her, though, this was the last straw. Nothing was where she had left it, and she couldnt work there. She asked him to move out. He was bafed. I never used to help around the house before, he said. However, his wife experienced his help as yet another of his attempts to assert his control over her. To check whether you are entering a new phase or merely repeating old patterns, consult a friend. Re-examine the transition process: Are you trying to flee the uncertainty of the neutral zone? During a new beginning, cut yourself some slack. Forget about results. Allow yourself to explore and experiment.

Whether it is a minor disappointment or a major shock, [disenchantment] is the signal that things are moving into transition.

A relationship, like the lives that come together to form it, has its seasons Problems, in this view, are notflaws to be corrected; they are signals that a chapter in the joint story has ended.

What Not to Do Many people cannot handle their feelings of loss during the ending phase, or the anxiety of the neutral zone. They try to shorten the transitional process, for example, by beginning the new phase before theyve properly said goodbye to the old one. However, a transition turned upside down quickly becomes frightening and unintelligible.
Some people try to avoid the pain of transition by burying their feelings, discounting their experience or ignoring its signicance. They refuse to look within. Instead, they imagine that they have no control over what is happening. As a result, they shortchange themselves and distort the arc of their lives. Never run from a transitional period. Indeed, ultimately, you cant. Transitions are the way your life unfolds.

Types of Transitions Most people experience three transitions during their lives:
1. Moving from childhood dependence to adulthood. 2. Establishing relationships and a career. 3. Shaking up assumptions and starting over in midlife.

Were you born to be 17 or 70? Are you a perennial 25-yearold, or are you still waiting for your entrance at 50?

For some people, entering their thirties is deeply significant, as they find life partners and have children. Others have a midlife crisis during their forties. However, most lives do not have such clearly marked crossroads. Instead, youll probably experience an ebb and flow of countless transitional phases. Some people find their lifes work only as they get older: Mohandas Gandhi was 50 when he developed nonviolent resistance. Miguel de Cervantes did not write Don Quixote until he was even older.
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Common Transitions These life changes often signal that youre entering a transitional period:
Home life alterations A birth, marriage, move to a new home, or illness. Relationship losses Divorce, an empty nest, or the death of a spouse, a friend or even a pet. Changes of a personal nature Illness, diet or exercise changes, interruption of sleep patterns, or a change in lifestyle or appearance, such as losing hair or gaining weight. Financial or work changes Retiring, being red and other job changes, or income decrease or increase. Inner-life changes Increases in political, psychological or spiritual awareness, or self-image changes. Physicians and psychologists have documented the stress that often accompanies transition, which can be so severe that it impairs your physical and mental health. During transitions, maintain good exercise and dietary habits.

Do that which consists in taking no action; pursue that which is not meddlesome; savor that which has no flavor. [ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching]

Is Your Relationship in Transition? Relationships as well as individuals go through transitions. Follow these steps if youre experiencing a relationship transition:
Take your time Although a signicant change in a relationship can happen in an instant, reorienting yourself to the new reality always takes time. Dont rush the process. Arrange temporary structures A relationship in transition is, by denition, imperfect. Be willing to live temporarily with a situation that you would not accept long term. Dont act for the sake of action Dont act before youve come to terms with the ending of your old relationship or way of relating. Take care of yourself in little ways When the world is coming apart around you, take comfort in the continuity of small things. If you are a music lover, go to a concert. If you are a gym rat, work out. Explore the other side of the change Is the change something that you initiated? Try to consider it from the other persons perspective. If you feel your friend or spouse forced the change on you, try to understand its benets. Find someone to talk to Even if you dont need advice, articulating your feelings may help you clarify your thinking. Think of transition as a process of leaving the status quo, living for a while in a fertile time-out, and then coming back with an answer Any transition, even the most painful, represents a time of self-renewal. Turn a difcult situation into one from which you can learn and grow.

After enlightenment, the laundry. [ Zen proverb]

Go Easy on Yourself Transition is a process. You cant simply turn it on and off. It always takes time, and your progress may be slow. During transitions, you are a marathon runner, not a sprinter. Your motto should be, I am not the new person that I eventually will be. However, slowly but surely, I am getting there.

About the Author

William Bridges is a lecturer, consultant and author of several books on life transitions.
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