More than Managing:

Facing Transition and Change

Change comes into our lives in a thousand different forms. We change jobs... or lose our job completely. Marriages change their shape and tone... or end altogether. We move to a new city... or a new house. We welcome a new child into the family... or say good-bye to a treasured loved one. The good health we once took for granted is suddenly compromised and we feel as if we’ve landed in a different world.

Many times change begins outside of us and meets us on the road. Other times, it is a growing awareness of a soft but insistent whisper inside of us that our hearts are no longer satisfied. Things in our lives that used to be fine are no longer good enough. Where there used to be calm there is now restlessness.

Transition and change can be like riding the white water - there are times for paddling as hard as you can but there are also times when all you can do is hold on and ride the river. But if all we do is to manage change, then we’ve lost a great opportunity.

Transition and change is hard, and we can’t be faulted for wanting to return to normal as soon as possible. Shortly after the September 11 attacks people expressed the wish for things to return to normal. Wiser people responded by reminding us that, for good or for ill, the world of September 10 was forever behind us and that the best we could do was to fashion a new normal. "The way things have always been" was no longer possible.

As hard as change can be, we can find ways of making it even harder.

Resisting the Change

Denial is part of the grieving process. It allows us to catch our breath, to believe that what is happening isn’t really happening. We may resist change because of that denial. If we pretend it isn’t happening, then it won’t. At other times, however, our resistance is really an expression of our anger. We are angry that our lives are being disrupted, and our first impulse is to push against this change that we do not want.

Resisting change doesn’t keep it from happening, it only uses up energy that we could have invested in figuring out ways to get through the transition. Instead of channeling our anger into resistance, it is much more productive to admit that we are angry, to find safe and healthy ways of expressing that anger and then moving on.

Strangling on Shoulds

I should be handling this better.

Do any of these sound familiar? For a lot of people, "should and shouldn’t" are constant companions. It’s as if we go though our lives constantly tailed by Olympic judges, rating us on how well we’re doing at any given moment. In the minds of a lot of people, the scores are not pretty.

The scoring may be based on what you should or should not be feeling. It may be an evaluation of what you should or should not have done. At it’s most far reaching, it is a measuring up of where you should be by now on your life journey.

Part of processing the events of our lives is learning from them, realizing where we made bad choices and what we can do to make better decisions in the future. It is an honest look at where we have been betraying ourselves by living in ways that are not consistent with what we believe and what we value.

That’s not what I’m talking about here. Strangling on shoulds means the automatic beating that we give to ourselves. It doesn’t move us ahead on our journey; it only beats us into the ground where we are. It leaves us with less ability to cope and less energy for getting through.

I was angry and just on the edges of a pity party as I talked to my friend. "I shouldn’t be in this place," I complained. "I should be past this by now."

"Obviously you aren’t past it," she said, "because that’s where you are. So what are going to do now?"

She had her finger on the most important question when you’re in the midst of change and transition. It’s not where you should be or how you should be doing. It’s what are you going to do now? If you cannot control the fact that change is happening, you can control how you will respond.

Fortunately, just as there are ways of sabotaging our process, there are ways of entering into change so that the transitions, and we ourselves, are transformed.

Acceptance doesn’t mean that you like what is happening. It doesn’t mean that you think it is the right thing that is happening. All it means is that you accept the fact that this is what is happening... right now. It means accepting that which you cannot change, even when that which you cannot change is change itself. It means letting go of all of your shoulds so that you can ask, "What now?"

Loss is woven into the fabric of change. Things are no longer the way they were. While you may be delighted with that fact, in change there are losses to be grieved, whether they be small or large. You may be delighted to be moving to a new job but also knowing you’ll miss the daily contact with a favorite co-worker. You may be excited about your new home but moving also means leaving some of the special places you created in your old home. The loss of a spouse may mean not only the loss of that person but the loss of identity, of routine, of dreams held for the relationship but never realized. Some losses need merely to be acknowledged while others need a little more time and attention and space for grieving.

When the winds of change have cleared out a room, it’s a perfect time to stop and ask just how you want that room to be. You may decide that you don’t want to repaint the walls the same color or hang the same pictures. You may decide that some of the furniture no longer suits you or serves you.

When things are going along on a somewhat even keel, it’s hard to ask, "How do I want my life to be different?" Change means that your life is already different, so it can be a good time to reflect on your life as a whole. What have you learned about yourself in this transition? What surprised you, either in a good way or an uncomfortable one? Are there whispers that your heart has been trying to get you to hear, nudges about other changes that your soul needs to make?

A recent article in USA Today chronicled the changes some people made in their lives following the September 11 attacks. One woman changed her career path from working in a high powered corporation to working with a nonprofit. Another man, who’d been a chef at the World Trade Center restaurant, returned home to Florida to live and work nearer to his family. Sometimes, however, the shift is mostly an internal one; for example, a decision to live with more gratitude or less perfectionism.

How do you want your life to be different? What lessons do you need to take from this experience?

Managing change means being reactive. Transforming change means being proactive. Managing change means surviving (which, at times, may be the necessary first goal). Transforming change means creating a new life.

Transition means that old dreams are past, either because they have been fulfilled (as in a college graduation) or because they are broken (as in a divorce) or because they no longer apply. The final stage is transforming change is allowing ourselves to dream new dreams and then to move in the direction of those dreams. We may or may not have had a choice about what has happened. We always have the option of asking, "What next?"

© 2002 Peggy Haymes

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