Transitions, by William Bridges
The full title of this book is :
“Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s changes – Strategies for coping with the difficult, painful and confusing times in your life”.
That sums it up, really.
I’ve read Transitions a few times, and I still return to it often. If you’re going through something of your own, I’m confident you will love it too.
Bridges’ main idea is that although we all face regular changes in our lives – some corresponding to a natural “season” (leaving home, starting our first job, getting married), others due to unpredictable circumstances (a bereavement or illness) – we are usually not prepared for them.
Whether we see them mostly as negative (like redundancy) or positive (like a promotion or pregnancy), those big changes can often cause us deep confusion.
In Bridges’ words, “without a transition, a change is just a rearrangement of the furniture”. While a situation change is external and objective, a life transition is psychological.
If we don’t have the skills to handle the psychological aspect of changes, we suffer more than necessary. We also risk missing the unique opportunity for growth they offer.
According to Bridges, ancient societies may not have had modern psychology, but they all had rituals to help people navigate different life stages.
The Greeks had myths, while in some remote (and somewhat hardcore) tribes, young men were sent out to live in the forest to mark their passage from childhood to adulthood. Which made it clear for themselves and all villagers that they were officially grown up (which they symbolised by removing their childhood belongings).
In order to help us non-villagers with the process, Bridges breaks it down into clear phases to help us map this tricky terrain. Every life transition comes in three stages:
- First comes the ending. This is the point at which we realise a change has happened and our previous circumstances no longer apply. This realisation can follow a change (we have just divorced) or precede it (we are no longer interested in our marriage).
It is usually a bit of a shock, and often one we’d rather not face. It’s also not going to go away. - Second comes the “neutral zone”, the space where we feel confused and unsure what to do next. We have lost our bearings and may no longer have a sense of who we are.
This period of time is important, but it tends to freak us out so we might resist it, either by putting things back they way they were, or by jumping onto the next thing before we’ve had a chance to process our feelings (like the person who goes from one relationship to the next, only to end up with the same type of person as before).
In our cultures of positive thinking and quick fixes, we don’t necessarily find it comfortable doing nothing until our image of the future is clearer (if you can’t see your future now, check out my previous post about this). But while this time is awkward, it also offers great opportunity for insights about our life. - Third and last, comes the new beginning. Once we’ve spent enough time in the neutral zone (“enough” being entirely subjective), we emerge with an idea of what to do in the next phase of our life.
This next phase requires action, which can be terrifying. In fact we may be tempted to go back to our previous situation rather than pushing ourselves to try something new. But this would be a mistake, as unless we acknowledge we’ve changed internally, rearranging our life as previous is never going to feel great.
As you may have experienced yourself, we tend to go back and forth in the stages. The process is not linear. But understanding these stages should really help us have an easier time when something comes up to upend our status quo.
Hence the need to re-read this book every so often, as and when needed. In addition to the theoretical framework, it includes plenty of real-life examples and detailed chapters on relationships and careers, so it would be helpful to anyone really.
If you end up picking it up, happy reading – and good luck with your current life transition.
Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s changes, by William Bridges.
