Transition is About Choice

It might start with a big crash, like 2020, pushing you out the door of the ‘same old, same old’. 

Or it might begin with a whisper from what the mystics call, ‘that quiet voice within’. 

An opportunity may arrive on your plate out of the blue. 

A relationship may be ending or beginning that demands that you shift.

Or a thousand other possibilities. 

In the end, how it begins is less important than how you respond. So let’s unpack that a little…

If someone feels that Life is happening TO them, then they feel they have no choice and become a victim of circumstances. Which of course is entirely disempowering. That position steals her/his vitality, creative thinking, initiative, and courage… it also kills hope and damages self-esteem and relationships. 

That person then becomes someone who complains about ‘what is’, all the while unconsciously reinforcing their own impotence to affect the change that they want. 

Ok …that’s enough of the downer! 

It's just that it’s important to know that by blaming circumstances, people, governments, institutions, and so on, we are not impacting 'them' but rather undermining our own creative capacities. 

To know that we can choose HOW to interpret anything, that we can choose to see that Life is always with us, for us and on our side…then just that one word 'choice', transforms the transition journey completely. 

How we choose to see a situation - and there are hundreds of possible interpretations of any given circumstance - determines how we face the road ahead.

You can call it mindset but really it’s more ‘whole’ than just mind. Although mind is of course fundamental in the equation of a successful transition. 

It seems to me that we are all being called to take account…not in a heavy way at all, rather in a joyful way, a way that says: “If we could make it up, invent our lives according to what makes us feel most alive…then what would we love? What makes us content in the long term, not just short-lived happy hits, but sustainable good feeling for ourselves, for our families and communities”? That is our ‘heartset’ at work.

So we need both. Mindset and Heartset. 

There is some reset to be done on both due to past programming. Habits of thinking and being are very much 'repeat patterns'. Our neural pathways run the same programs day in and day out. Literally. Most people know the statistic of the average human being having (not thinking) 60,000 thoughts a day. More dramatic is the fact that 95% of those thoughts are the same ones we had yesterday and the day before, and the day before, and and and… 

Knowing that our thinking and seeing, feeling and acting or reacting, are all packaged up together, then it’s clear that if we want to change going forward, then there is reset work to be done. Now while that can be challenging, it’s also incredibly liberating. 

Once you choose your transition, rather than inherit it begrudgingly, then all this fabulous creative work begins. 

Crossing the Bridge

COVID, as damaging as it has been to much of ‘life as it was’, has provoked many to ask “What is truly the most important to me?” And “What would I absolutely love?” 

That’s when the transition becomes a journey of creativity rather than one of survival. 

The reins of our lives return to our hands when we begin to live them from the inside out, that is when we plant ourselves firmly in what we stand for and what’s important for us. Then it’s amazing how Life collaborates with opportunities, encounters, and insights. 

I’ve received so many messages during the past months from both friends and strangers on social media declaring that although 2020 has stripped away at many of the trappings of our lives, it has been a gift. People have had to simplify, rethink and refeel (new word Websters) and many have found a renewed sense of self and joy in their new way. 

In touch with many people from all over the world, I have seen that those who have managed it all with grace and gratitude are definitely the ones who’ve had some deep spiritual or inner stability, some meditative practice and mindset/heartset that are born from acquired wisdom. 

That very poignant prayer from AA has never rung more true than in this great transition of 2020. 

(Note: as it’s a prayer they use the word God, but it’s not in a dogmatic way. So if it grates or scratches something in you, simply let it pass through and move on to the value in the prayer itself).

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

The courage to change the things I can; 

And the wisdom to know the difference. 

There’s a saying that Life tries to wake us up all the time from the slumber of unconscious living.

It’s first attempt is with a feather. 

If we don’t attend to that call, it hurls a brick. 

Still not listening/feeling, the next is a truck. 

Finally a train. 

Remember the choice is ours. Reset our minds, reset our hearts. Then the transition is a puzzle, an adventure, an experiment. The obstacles transform into challenges and games, no longer problems or burdensome. Their solutions bring strength and joy, and connectedness with others; because this time is the time of co-creating and community. The era of the lone wolf is gone. We’re in this together. And it is in our hands. 

Transitions are slippery things if you don’t know the way, but once you do, once you start to choose and engage with the magic of movement, then you never, ever look back.