Change Happens

There is nothing inherently bad about change. How we move through a change – a divorce, a relocation, the loss of a job, the loss of a spouse – any change, is impacted by our interpretation of the change. If it’s unexpected or unwelcomed, we will often resist the change and find ourselves blaming ourselves, others or circumstances. We ruminate on “Why did this happen to me?” We have strong emotions, maybe even bitterness, that we find difficult to let go of. If our interpretation of the same change is to focus on what is and what might now be possible, we can do the work of moving through the change – this is the act of transitioning. The change is situational; transitioning is psychological, emotional and internal.

Transitioning through a change successfully means taking the time to disengage from the past before we can fully engage with something new. It’s a process. Depending on the situation and the person, transitioning may take only a little while, or it may take much longer. If we are able to respond to a situation with resilience, we will be able to come to grips with the past circumstances and then focus on what is possible. There is often an “in-between” time where we do not see the path forward. We feel lost and even overwhelmed by uncertainty.

Within a six-month period, I retired from my career in Leadership Development, sold our house and moved to a different state, lost my husband and became a widow. I was only in control of the decisions I made, but not the losses: friends we left behind, a beautiful home, a church that we loved and eventually the loss of my life partner. Even though I seem to possess a fair amount of resilience, I found myself very much adrift concerning the next chapter in my life. I was in turmoil. Yet, I knew from experience that the feelings of fear and anxiety were normal. They just were feelings. They didn’t need to immobilize me. I knew too that I had been here before under different circumstances and I eventually came out quite okay. For many months though, I drifted. I had a sense of where I wanted to end up, but I had no map to chart my course. I couldn’t see my way forward. I was afraid. I was stuck.

As I drifted, I focused on staying calm, breathing, trusting that once again that things would work out. I reached out, made new connections and ultimately met a woman at a conference who agreed to coach me through my dilemma. Interestingly, after making the decision at the conference, people who I had only just met a day or so before, commented on how my face had changed. I was “glowing” and had an entirely different demeanor. Wow! There had been a shift and now the wind had caught my sail and I was tacking toward the destination that I wanted for myself.

We want to get to the other side of change. To experience the settled feeling, the status quo that reassures us everything is okay. Recently someone said that they believe that there is power in pain. Yet when we’re in pain, or we’re really uncomfortable, it lays us out flat or we stall. We struggle to get motivated, because we have no plan to move forward. Or if we have a plan, we may not have the support we need or the affirmation that we are on the right track. We lack the courage to take the necessary steps to get to a different place.

A coach can help others see their way forward; to have greater clarity about what they want and how to get to the other side of change. I use my own experiences of transitioning to help others put closure to the past, to find greater peace during the “in-between” time, to move forward with a map to chart their course, and identify when course corrections are needed.