Counseling for Life Transition Management

Counseling for Life Transition Management

“The only constant in life is change.” -Heraclitus

Think of your past. What do you remember? Are the things that stand out big events? For most of us, our lives are defined by these events or transitions. These are the life events that involve changes in our daily routines, responsibilities, and roles. They challenge us to readjust, adapting ourselves to the new reality they bring on. Biologists tell us any demand for change on a living thing is stress, and boy, can life transitions bring on the stress. 

Type of Life Transitions

Not all life transitions are the same, despite them all making the same demands for change. To understand how you respond to them, it is important for us to briefly talk about the types. 

We are born, we grow up, we have milestones. Elementary school, high school, maybe college, entering the workforce. Marriage, becoming parents. Seeing children leave the home. Retirement. All of these are usually anticipated life transitions. You expect them. They are right there on the calendar. These are known and expected and yet we all know from experiences these transitions, even when positive, bring the stress of huge life changes. 

Of course, expected life transitions do not always happen. Many parents today are struggling with adult children still at home when they expected those children to leave home years ago. There are people who always expected to be married with children who find that never happened. Failing to find a job in a career. The lack of a transition can be devastating. 

The unexpected life transitions are often the most stressful. Life throws something unexpected at you. The death of a loved one. An unexpected pregnancy. The loss of a job. The disintegration of a marriage. The need to care for ageing parents. When you have not prepared for a change, you feel flat footed and off balance. 

The internal life transition is the most subtle. This is the inner sense that things are changing for you. With no outward events, this has the least external support for you. Indeed, for middle aged men this can be derided as a “mid-life crisis”. The sense that something need to change inside yourself, in your relationships with others is a life transition with as much impact as any other. It causes the same 

Your Emotions are normal!

Life Transitions present challenges no matter the type. Your past habits and routines get overturned. It is normal to be irritable at how things have changed. Developing new skills takes time. Understanding the requirements for a new role is not easy. It is not like you get handed an instruction manual for life! Building new relationships and changing how you dance with your loved ones is work. Instead of flowing like water down old carved canyons, you are pumping it uphill in new ways. 

Most critical is understanding the grief you have is normal. You ask, “I have this wonderful thing happen, how can I be grieving?” Yes, you have a positive new life event and you have lost your old ways of being. Marriage means you give up your previous life for a new one. Your children leaving home marks a profound change in your life. You can both have the joy of the transition, and the grief that a part of your life is over. 

Your internal need for change

Your emotions around your internal transition do not even feel valid. With something external, others can see it happen and understand. It is right out in the open. But you are unhappy with how life is progressing and you want to make a change. It is not a shift driven by an outside event, but a push from inside yourself. It is hard for you to even understand, let alone express it to others. All you know is the current way of living is no longer working as it once did and you have to make a change. You intuitively know that this will bring stress just like any other life transition and yet you are making it. This may be to the distress of others around you, as you appear to be changing for no reason. This push back and your inability to explain it makes you doubt your own feelings. The internal life transition is quite disorienting and dislocating in ways that you feel but struggle to explain. It is hard to be lost and alone. 

You are totally stressed out

Change is stressful, and this change in stressing you out. Eustress is the type of positive stress that can help you stay motivated, work towards goals, and often comes with feeling good about life. Distress is the thing we normally think about with stress, causing us worry, aggravation, and anxiety. No matter the form of stress, you are subject to demands for change. Over time, even eustress can begin to create a negative impact, as ongoing demands for action wear you down. Your new job is everything you wanted and 50 hours of work a week with travel taking you away from your family. Your new baby is the greatest joy in your life and not sleeping more than 4 hours at time is beyond draining. 

When it is distress, it is hard to have any practice of gratitude. Caring for your parents while trying to work full time and be there for your family is leaving you no time for anything else. Everything is suffering and there is no end in sight. You lost your job and bills are due. You are desperate to have a romantic partner and yet you are alone.

Stress can crowd out everything else in your life. As the things stressing you out start to consume your time, your energy, your very thoughts. Positive routines drop by the wayside. Your self-care suffers. Your life feels reduced to a grind as you struggle to put one foot in front of the other. 

How do we fix this? 

Life transitions are a common reason why people come to me for therapy. Life has changed or it is changing and you want to cope to that change. We will work on new skills and strategies to manage your day to day coping with the new world. We will explore your individual past and how you became who you are. You have built coping skills to give you a sense of power, a sense of place, and a sense of value. I will help you understand how these skills have worked for you in the past to get you to today. We will examine how they are not working as well for you today. With understanding you can choose what you want to do differently in your future. 

We will explore how your life transition has changed your sense of security, sense of place, and sense of meaning. We will look at your changing roles and how we can integrate this into your sense of being. You get to decide who you are going to be. You get to decide how you will adapt. I will help you learn that change does not mean you will lose what is important to you about yourself. Your successful life transition is not into a different person, but the next version of you. 

None of this is going to be easy. I can promise you will be uncomfortable. Letting go of how it was means grieving what has been lost. Even if others do not see the need for grief, moving through this process is a vital part of adapting to and thriving in your new reality. And as with any process of grief, there will be times when you feel you are moving backwards even as you are progressing. Losing what was and letting go does not happen all at once. You can expect a time of feeling uncertain and even disoriented. You do not have to do this alone. I will be with you to keep you safe and remind you of your progress. As your therapist, I am there as a guide. I am not part of your family. I am not a friend. I stand outside your day to day life. You will have the opportunity to be open, vulnerable, and scared with me in a place with no moral condemnation, no castigation of weakness, and no judgement for anxious. I understand where you are because as a fellow human being, I do this with life transitions, too. 

What does “better” look like?

“When we are ready to make a new beginning, we will shortly find an opportunity,” — William and Susan Bridges 

The final “stage” of grief is Acceptance. Sadness for the loss of the past is always with us. Part of me still misses the more carefree Friday nights eating out with friends with the energy of my youth despite not wanting to change a day of watching my children grow up. Our goal is for you to build new routines to manage the new reality brought on by your life transition. You will have new coping skills and be better adapted for today. You will be able to leverage who you are with integrity and confidence 

We will explore ways to direct your time and energy in the best ways possible so that you are focused on the critical things. We will find ways to understand and express your needs for change and communicate them with your loved ones so they can support you. We will develop strategies for taking on those daunting tasks. You will have more energy to say “yes” to opportunities and “no” to responsibilities that are not yours.

Most critically, you will be able to practice grace towards yourself when you slip back into the old ways of thinking and feeling. As with every other life transition, you will become a different version of you, ready to take on the next life transition that is coming your way, using the new skills you have developed. I hope you will allow me to journey with you along your path with this one.