change is inevitable: navigating endings and transitions
As the old saying goes, the only constant in life is change. And while it may be true that everything around us is constantly changing – and we are constantly changing, it doesn’t necessarily mean that change is easy. I think part of the reason is that we tend to judge change as either good or bad. We either like it or we don’t like it.
Personally, I like change. I love learning new things, I like challenging myself and getting better at doing things, I like changing things up and experimenting to see how things work.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I like change sometimes.
There are times when I really want to make a change – and I find it really challenging. I find it hard to figure out how to make the change stick, to not revert to my old patterns and ways of doing things.
And of course, there have been many times in my life when I’ve found myself in the midst of a change, that I really would have preferred not to be in at all.
Whether we choose them or not, we all go through many changes. We have jobs, relationships, routines, living arrangements, and more that come to an end and we find ourselves transitioning into a new beginning. Even when we’ve chosen to make a particular transition, we still experience a whole range of emotions and thoughts as part of our journey from one thing to the next.
A simple framework for navigating endings and transitions
1. Acknowledge
The simplest (though not necessarily the easiest) place to start is by acknowledging where you currently are, even if it’s not where you’d ideally like to be.
+ Where are you physically?
+ What are the dominant emotions that you’re noticing are coming up?
+ What are the thoughts and stories that are in your mind – about where you are now and about how you got there?
Rather than judge or justify, simply acknowledge the facts about where you are right now. Writing down or saying them out loud are great ways to acknowledge what’s really true for you right now.
Another fact to acknowledge is where you are in the change cycle. Often with endings, there is a transition stage, a period of time after one thing has ended and before the next thing starts. While it can feel uncomfortable to be in the transition phase, this is also where the possibilities lie.
Even if, or maybe especially if, you’re not where you’d like to be right now, it’s supportive to acknowledge how far you’ve come to get to where you currently are. We tend to spend so much time thinking about how we are going to get from where we are to where we’d like to be. It’s easy to forget just how much we’ve changed, how much we’ve learned, and how much effort we’ve put in to get to where we currently are.
2. Release
Once you’re clear on exactly where you are now, and you’ve noticed how far you’ve come and the potential available to you, it’s time to let go of all of the old stuff that you don’t want to carry forward with you.
The truth is that while endings can bring new opportunities and fresh energy, they also tend to come with feelings of disappointment and sadness and frustration and hurt. Often, a change in our circumstances means that we experience a change to our identity. Who we thought we were turns out to no longer be the case.
And what I know for sure is that just like the story about going on a bear hunt, we have to go through it. When we try to go around it or under it or over it (for example by distracting ourselves, or pretending that we feel differently, or trying to hide it away, or simply by ignoring it), we somehow just find ourselves back in the middle of it again.
There are lots of ways to release all of the stories and emotions and beliefs and thoughts that are wrapped up in our old situations and identities. But, if you’re anything like me, while the process of letting go may be simple, it’s not always an easy thing to do.
My best advice is to see what works for you as the process of releasing is not a one size fits all. Click here to get a free copy of my guide to creating your own release ritual.
Here are a few things you might like to try:
+ Movement: dancing, shaking, bouncing, jumping, walking are all options for releasing stuck energy.
+ Breathwork: this is one of my favourite practices (especially if you’re someone who tends to find letting go difficult).
+ Visualisations: imagine that water is washing away what you want to release, or that the wind is picking it up and carrying it away, or imagine throwing it into the fire to be burned up, or letting it dissolve into the earth. You can also take these from visualisations into embodied practices if you prefer e.g. stand under running water and imagine the water washing the old energy away or write down what you want to release and then safely burn it.
3. Decide
Sometimes when we go through change, what we’re moving to next is already clear (sometimes we get to choose this and sometimes we don’t). Sometimes, in the transition phase, we’re left not really knowing what’s going to come next for us – and sometimes this not knowing phase can last a lot longer than we would like. The in-between phase can feel uncomfortable – and to a certain extent, I think it’s an opportunity to practice getting (a little bit) more comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.
If it’s not time yet to make a decision about what your next goal is, what can you choose instead? Can you choose to stay in the uncomfortable in-between? Or can you choose to keep coming back to it, even when you notice that you try to run away or escape from it every now and then? Can you decide to look for the things (even just one small thing) that you like about being in the in-between?
For more support to figure out what you really want – and make it happen – check out this post.
Making a decision is where momentum begins. Sometimes we avoid making a decision because we don’t have clarity yet about exactly where we want to go, or how to get there. But the irony is that clarity comes from action, not from thought. That’s why I’m a big believer in starting with a small action step. Taking that first small step will give you so much more information about what you really want and what’s really important to you. And, even if it turns out that the step you’ve taken isn’t in the right direction, it was only a small step so it’s not too hard to go back or move sideways if you’d prefer.
Something that I learned from my first meditation teacher, Emily Fletcher, is that according to the Vedas, there is no good or bad. There is only a cycle of creation, maintenance and destruction. Everything (including us and all of the parts of us) is subject to this cycle – and of course the length of the cycle can vary, from seconds to millennia. We tend to make things more challenging for ourselves when we try to control or resist this natural cycle.
I think it depends how you look at it. In some ways, it’s comforting to think of change as a cycle. Yes, endings are inevitable – but so are new beginnings.