UNDERSTANDING OUR EMOTIONS DURING LIFE TRANSITIONS
I grew up with those fixed life stages in my mind. Get my Bac (the French equivalent to the GED), go to university, get a job, meet someone, date, fall in love, get married, have kids, be a working mom, face the 7 years marriage itch, the crisis of turning 40, see my kids leave the house, retire at 65. That’s the myth I grew up with. One of stability, a successful, healthy, balanced, controlled, perfect adult life!
But I quickly realized that my life was not going to be that clearly laid out. That those 7, 12, 15 life stages that everyone talks about are not fixed, linear or under my control; life is more cyclical than that. Most of the things that tell my life story were unpredictable, not automatically what I wanted, and didn’t happen at a specific and identified time.
I worked in different countries, and each time I discovered more and more about who I was and what I wanted, which did not concord with my expected, anticipated future. After 12 years in operations and consulting in the hotel and restaurant industry I took the leap and opened my own restaurant. A dream come true! I was an entrepreneur! I had opened my own little neighborhood restaurant with my friends, and it was everything I had ever imagined and more!
When I closed it, it marked the end of my 15-year career in hospitality. Who was I without this career that took all the space in my head that defined who I was, gave me a social status, friends, skills I had mastered, a comfort zone, and a job I considered to be my passion? What was next for me? How could I let go of that part of me?
During a transition phase, we can feel hazy and confused. We hold on to what we have and are uncertain about what the future brings.
John Maxwell rightly said:
“Change is inevitable, growth is optional.”
I would add to this that every change or transition comes with an ending and a transformation where this growth can happen, but we sometimes miss that these are transitions, because we go through them in survival mode.
Everyone experiences transitions in life. Life is always evolving, changing, and growing. We just faced a universal challenge during the pandemic where the whole world felt insecure and had to survive and adapt to this “new” life, but each of us faced and adapted to this transition differently.
A transition that is forced upon us (health problem) or a transition we have chosen (have a child) has the inevitable result of feeling different. We are never fully prepared for large life transitions, even when we are aware they are coming because as we said before, life is not linear.
There are transitions that we neglect and suppress like wanting to do something such as changing jobs or moving countries, but we resist them. Maybe because we fear the consequences, feel unclear on the next steps, lack the courage, or it reminds us of a bad experience we have already lived and don’t want to repeat. It’s usually easier to go through a transition we have chosen because we feel in control and have mentally approved of the change.
Transitions that are forced upon us are much harder to accept. We can feel alone, scared, insecure, ashamed, resentful, hopeless, stuck, unprepared, and angry about having our life plans disrupted and changes imposed on us. We refuse to accept the new change; we refuse to let go of what we had. We instinctively go to the familiar, to what we had, we look for something that answers our need to be in control. When we don’t accept change, we can feel stuck and be in an unfulfilled state.
Transitions happen to all of us, and during them, we can lose our sense of self and identity. “Who am I without him in my life? Who am I if I don’t work for this company anymore?” “What’s next for me now?”
Big transitions create changes in our narrative, in the story of our life. Everyone speaks of finding that ideal work/life balance, but life will always have bumps that make us lose our equilibrium.
How can we overcome those transitions, those bumps, without feeling completely shaken?
Discover tips to guide your journey in the next part of this article: LIFE TRANSITIONS: TIPS TO GUIDE OUR JOURNEY.