What happens when you run headlong into one of life’s ‘ten terrible transitions’? You probably know what they are — I’ve written about them before: 1) Death of a loved one, 2) Making a life commitment, 3) Breaking a life commitment, 4) Changing careers, 5) Going into business, 6) Retirement, 7) Bankruptcy, 8) Serious illness or accident, 9) Spiritual awakening (including addiction recovery), and 10) Embracing sexual identity (as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered). All of them (even the ‘good’ ones) have the same effect on your experience of day-to-day living: it stops! Everything comes to a screeching halt until the transition is completed. You’ve fallen. So, what happens then?
Everyone goes through the same four sets of experiences, according to his or her temperament and the nature of the transition. I call them “the four ‘R’s”: realization, reaction, reflection and result. At each experience, you encounter a different set of emotions, all of which have to be dealt with before you can get on with the life you’ve chosen for yourself. Let’s look at each one.
First, you realize what is happening, and that causes you to feel as if your life has been disrupted. In point of fact, it has. Circumstances have conspired to distract you from your life goals to such a degree that you can no longer ignore it. It demands your attention, and won’t be put off until later. It must be addressed now before you’re free to do anything else. To the extent that you resent this intrusion into your plans, you may even feel defeated or victimized. “Why,” you may ask yourself, “is this happening to me, and why now?”
Next, you have an emotional reaction to the realization that your will has been thwarted. You will probably feel frustrated and disappointed. To the extent that you fought to avoid having to face the transition that confronts you, you may feel exhausted from your struggle and/or overwhelmed by an experience that you simply can’t avoid, no matter how hard you try. Furthermore, to the extent that others are aware of your struggle, you may also feel humiliated. These are the most common reactions to coming to accept that the unthinkable is, in fact, happening.
While the last set of emotions came from your reaction to your realization of your situation, the next set of emotions arise in you when you reflect on your performance in the face of this transition. This is the perfect opportunity for whatever self-doubt you harbor to come forward and to take center stage. In these situations, it’s common to experience your emotions reflecting back to you feelings of inadequacy, incompetence, or deficiency. You may start thinking that maybe you’re defective, because you couldn’t avoid or at least manage the situation better. In extreme cases, you may feel like a ‘nobody,’ a ‘zero.’
As a direct result of this cascade of emotions, from realization to reaction to reflection, you will most likely arrive at a predictable emotional result: you’ll feel a deep sense of helplessness, a sense of being stuck in an impossible situation, and at a loss as to what you need to do next. Depending on whether you’re an extroverted or introverted person, you’ll very likely either strike out randomly at people, places and things in your surroundings (which may or may not have anything to do with the transition situation itself), or you’ll hunker down in frightened inaction. Some others, when faced with this situation, may even take off running in a vain attempt at escape. And, there we have our predictable (but very ineffective) result: the infamous fight, flight, or freeze responses.
Right now, I’m spending much of my spare time building a comprehensive but affordable program that people in transition can use not only to go beyond these debilitating emotions, but also to provide a means by which they can actually use these ‘negative’ experiences as stepping stones to give them a sense of direction, energy, pride, satisfaction, purpose, confidence and accomplishment beyond anything that they’ve experienced before. Sages, spiritual leaders and we coaches aren’t exaggerating when we insist that challenges are only opportunities in disguise. Properly managed, difficult transitions can be the most fertile ground from which incredible growth and progress can develop. I’ve seen it in my own life, and I’ve seen it in hundreds of people whom I have counseled and coached. With the proper guidance, I’ll bet I’ll see it in you, too!
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2009 H. Les Brown
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Tags: emotions, initiative, mastery, midlife, reaction, realization, reflection, result, transition
October 30th, 2009 at 3:01 am
I found your article whilst searching for some background material on life coaches. I’m doing research for my next management game. You have made me curious in reading more. I’ll follow you and see if you are able to provide some more interesting thoughts on this subject. Kind regards, Susan, professional life coaches games developer.