Navigating Transitions - Unlocking the power of our Emotions

As I sit here looking at the sea thousands of miles from my family, friends and work, I am present to the impact of transition in our lives.  

In fact I find it quite ironic, that so much of what I do in the world is focussed upon helping others to navigate transition that I haven’t stopped to consider the impact of transition in my own life.

What does it mean to transition?  According to the dictionary transition is …”movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another; change…” . When I reflect upon this definition I am reminded of the power of these words and however simple they may seem, the devil is in the detail as we navigate transitions in our own lives.  

For me, I have come to realise (albeit through experience) that I have developed a transition toolkit which has facilitated my capacity to navigate transition and meet the challenges of life’s curved balls.  We all have our own personal curved balls, those moments that change the trajectory of our lives and take us to places and emotions we never knew existed until they are presented to us. Often our curved ball moments arrive when we least expect them, the death of a loved one, having your heart broken, leaving school, starting a new job, losing a job, getting married, the birth of a child, navigating divorce, parenting, an unexpected illness, children leaving home, remarrying, retiring, the list goes on, in essence our lives are filled with transitions

Some transitions evoke what we perceive as negative emotions like fear, anxiety and uncertainty and some fill us with positive emotions like joy, anticipation and excitement. What’s important to understand with transitions, is the first step in navigating transition is reckoning with the emotions that come with transitions. To recognise that our emotions provide valuable data that fuel or hinder transition and our capacity to reckon with our emotions is a critical first step in navigating life’s transitions.

Every day we are presented with transitions and we get to choose how we navigate these transitions, yet sometimes there are transitions that bring us to our knees where we feel it’s impossible to move forward or we find ourselves stuck in the sea of our emotions and experiences.  Personally I have found it is these transitions that transform us, for it is in the “getting unstuck’ that our greatest learnings arise and we are transformed, arising from the experience with insights and strengths we never knew we had.

Like the hero in the stories of our ancestors, we need to arise to be the hero in our own story.  The challenge comes as we navigate the stories of who we are, stories of not being enough, stories of unworthiness, stories of perfectionism. Who would you be without these stories?  For as we transition, we need to walk into our stories and rumble with them so we can be the authors of a new story.  

No matter where we are in life, our experiences shape who we are, yet they do not define us. For at any moment we can choose to move forward, make a shift or try something. For as we know in the world of physics a slight change in a pattern or a shift in perspective, can change the course of history. 

Opening ourselves up to the power of emotions and how they fuel or hinder transitions is a critical step in navigating transition.  When we reckon and rumble with our emotions and stories, we have the power and insights to fuel transition and transformation.