I don't know about you, but I struggle with change and transitions. When the season changes, I miss the one that's leaving. When my girls finish a grade or start a new one, I'm nostalgic. And leaving a job? Forget it. I'm a wreck.
Part of this is because of the change itself -- the weather gets warmer or colder, the girls go to new schools or have new teachers, whatever -- but the majority of the struggle for me is the transition, the inner process of reorientation that I go through with every change. Summer Kate feels different than Winter Kate. And Mom of a First Grader feels different from Mom of a Preschooler.
Though it's not intuitive, when we look at it, it's easy to see that change starts with an ending. William Bridges, the grandfather of transitions (and author of the terrific book Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes) says, "Divorces, deaths, job changes, moves, illnesses, and many lesser events disengage us from the contexts in which we have known ourselves. They break up the old cue system that served to reinforce our roles and pattern our behavior." When we break up that cue system, it can cause us to struggle.
To get through that struggle, we have to go through five different steps to create a new cue system that works for the new situation. They are:
Disengagement
Dismantling
Disenchantment
Disidentification
Disorientation
Let's look at each of these to see how they might play out in your change or transition.
Disengagement (separation)
Your transitions start with disengagement - a separation. It's your psychological or mental withdrawal from the way things were before. This step is important because it's the process of detaching from the old ways of doing things and essentially turning off auto-pilot. It's both a mental and sometimes a physical separation or distance from the people and places we used to connect with (think: taking a cruise the first Christmas after dad dies or not spending time with acquaintances after the birth of a baby). Disengagement can give us perspective on how things were before and can start to give us the mental distance we need to take on a new role or identity.
Dismantling (re-orienting)
This is the fairly cognitive process of taking apart the habits and behaviors that were part of the old way and intentionally constructing new processes. It's not renewing your parking pass after getting a job closer to the train or no longer putting on a suit to start your workday. A good metaphor for this phase is renovating your kitchen - first you have to take out all the cabinets and appliances and strip the room down to its essentials before you can start to build it back up again.
Disidentification ("I don't know who I am anymore")
Have you ever been in an interview when a candidate talked about their current employer or team as "they" instead of "we"? That's the process of disidentification starting. While this phase can be confusing and leave you unsure of who you are (Are you an SVP? Are you really a father? Are you no longer a Bostonian?) it's an important step to create the space for your new roles and identities to come into your life. You may feel that your identity is really being threatened by this change -- if I'm not a teacher anymore, who am I? -- but it's important to resist the urge to cling to past roles because it makes it harder to adapt to the new ones.
Disenchantment ("this is not how it was supposed to go")
This is the feeling that things are not how or what you thought they were - or maybe even what they were "supposed to be." It's finding out that your hard work at that last job didn't keep you safe from the layoffs, that fifteen years of marriage didn't prevent your partner from straying, or that the likable salesman who promised you the used car had no problems was lying. You experience a clash between the world of expectations or assumptions in your head and the way things actually turned out.
Disorientation ("I am so upsidedown")
My guess is that you're already familiar with feeling lost and confused, which is the crux of disorientation. In this phase, our bearings and our plans for the future have to change and rearrange, and it's not comfortable. For people who enjoy feeling forward momentum, this is a particularly unpleasant time of swirl and stagnation. There's an emptiness that most of us experience as frightening - think of your friend the serial monogamist, who didn't want to leave a relationship until another one was lined up. That's a great example of avoiding disorientation, but perhaps not the best thing to do (especially if you're interested in self-knowledge and not repeating mistakes).
As you read about each of these components, what resonated with you? Where do you think you are with your change?
Fear not! There's always a light at the end of the tunnel and if you need help seeing it, I'm happy to chat. Book a free session with me here.
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