Life is constantly unfolding and taking its many turns and winding roads,
So what in the world is a life transition anyway?
Well,
It depends on the particular life that you're living,
Whatever your story is,
The story that you have been weaving throughout your life,
The story that has contained your emotional experience,
The relationships that have rooted your reality,
The identity that you have worn as you have navigated through your experiences.
When something drastic happens within your life that shifts your identity or dramatically changes one of your close relationships,
Maybe someone dies or gets sick,
Or maybe a relationship erodes and falls apart,
Or you get laid off at work,
Or for some reason the work you were doing is no longer inspiring you the same,
There's some sort of breakup.
Whatever the transition is,
It's important that we look at the experience of transition with open eyes so that we can walk through clearly best empowered with the chance to be living a fuller and wholer version of our life soon rather than a smaller or hollower version of our life.
Now,
As human beings,
Our brains evolved to regulate our body,
And so we create stories in order to make sense of the stress that we experience,
And we root within relationships in order to construct an identity that allows our reality to be manageable.
So,
We need to understand that with a life transition comes story transitions.
Characters will change.
We will change.
Now,
Also,
We don't tend to love change all that much when it's not something we want.
If we're going on a road trip,
The change can be kind of fun if we've chosen it.
It's an adventure that we've chosen,
But when it's unforeseen or when we doubt our ability to have power over the change,
Oh man,
We resist it,
We fight it,
We hate it because of the uncertainty within it.
We don't like uncertainty because within uncertainty means potential danger to us,
Particularly if we have struggled to have trusting relationships throughout our lives.
The less that we have had experiences of deep trust with others,
Then the less we will trust others.
The less we trust others,
The more we will believe that the only way to stay safe is to have more control.
So,
During transition time,
It is incredibly hard to resist the craving to just chase down more control in order to have more comfort because there's so much more uncertainty because the things that were are no longer.
And yet,
If we just chase down control,
We can get caught up in this game that is exhausting of always looking for more answers and information and flipping over other rocks and going down other paths just because they seem like they might give us a little bit more of a sliver of control regardless of how much they actually are things that we want.
We can start polling everybody about what their opinion is of what we should do and we can get a little dopamine hit from every little conversation that we have or all the things that we look up on the internet,
On WebMD or through Reddit and we can digest all of this little bit of information and feel like it's progress.
That we are better preparing ourselves for the task at hand of transitioning,
Of transforming our life and who we are when really all that we are doing is distracting ourselves from the uncertainty and the pain of that uncertainty that is happening.
So instead of engaging in that distraction,
Which then just uses up a bunch of our energy without making the transformational progress that we need,
Instead we've got to be able to see when our ego is pushing us into that craving for control because during a transition we're like a lobster that has shed its shell and we're now completely vulnerable until our new shell grows back.
But if we just run around asking everybody else,
How does my shell look?
What else should I be doing to make my shell grow faster?
What we're not doing is then walking closer toward the life that we want.
We're just trying to find a new shell,
Only the new shell is what everybody else thinks and all these things that we're using to distract ourselves but that's not a sustainable shell.
And stressing ourselves out in this way,
It also can push our body to like regrow a shell that might work for a little bit but actually ends up being too constrictive because we didn't allow it time to really develop.
So rather than creating a new life with practices and relationships that bolster our sense of self,
Rather than becoming a fuller,
Truer version of ourselves,
We can develop addictions,
Behaviors that we rely on to cope with things that we don't know how else to feel or we can create toxic relationships with codependence,
Hyper-depending on someone because we didn't go through the experiences that we needed to in order to enhance our power.
And so in this moment,
In this moment,
I invite us to just take a deep breath.
Can you just feel your heart right now?
Maybe you close your eyes and just as you breathe,
Can you bring your attention to your heart without needing to investigate,
Explore,
Analyze,
Interrogate it?
Can you just bring some curious attention to your heart?
What does it feel like right now?
Is there some fear?
Can you notice it?
Can you open up your attention like a welcome mat and an open door for whatever your heart is feeling right now?
And just see if you can feel it for a little bit,
Curiously.
Other thoughts and feelings may be coming up through the mind and that's okay.
That's what the mind does,
Trying to make sense of things,
Just reminding,
Re-minding the mind that it's okay right now.
You're generally okay.
You're connecting with your heart right now.
You can come back to those thoughts later.
What does my heart feel like right now?
What fears,
Pains,
And cravings are here that I can hold for a few moments with loving attention?
Thoughts come up.
That's okay.
Just allow them to keep passing by like jet streams up above you as you just return your attention to your heart.
What feelings are here?
What sensations?
Do the emotions or sensations that come up,
Come up with a shape or a color as you connect with them?
Is there a temperature to them,
A warmth or a coolness?
How about a texture,
Sharpness,
Bumpiness,
Smooth?
What is here?
You deserve the life you long for,
Though to get there,
You will need to show your heart that you believe that you are worthy of it,
Meaning its cravings to protect you will not push you to limit and self-protect and under-commit to what matters most to you.
You can prove that to your heart by just bringing curious,
Loving attention to its experience and showing it and you that you can hold it.
What is your heart afraid of?
What is it afraid of most?
Can you sit here with that fear with your heart for just a bit and notice what it feels like to the rest of your body as you ask that question and sit with that fear?
What is my heart afraid of most?
Transition means to cross over.
You are in a bridge state.
Whether the destination you're heading toward will be a fuller,
More powerful place or a smaller and more hollow place depends on how deeply you can see yourself through the experience so that you have the truest data of who you are as you make decisions about what you do.
Dear one,
Can you just give yourself some gratitude for being brave enough to sit with these fears and to just breathe that in for a few moments?
