transitions
The first time the word transitions caught my notice, I was a recent college grad, teaching A-level physics on a Caribbean Island. I was on the adventure of a lifetime and I was thrilled!!
Or I had been thrilled. Just a couple days before. On this particular day, maybe three weeks into my grand adventure, I felt deflated.
Swamped. Out of my depth. Sad. Overwhelmed.
You are here
“Nothing had changed in my circumstances. And yet, something shifted in me. ... I was better oriented. I knew where I was. What I was dealing with.”
Email was a lifeline to friends and family left behind so, I checked it as often as possible. As I sat at the family computer in a friend’s kitchen, an email emerged with an article attached. It claimed to identify “The 7 Most Stressful Transitions” we face during our lives, namely:
College graduation
New job
Marriage
Divorce
New baby
Relocation
Death of a loved one
I was hitting four of the seven! All I was missing was marriage, divorce and having a baby.
Suddenly, my overwhelm was no longer a sign of weakness. It felt… legit. Reasonable, even.
YOU ARE HERE - In the tunnel called “the transition stage”—having left your old normal life, but yet to settle into a new normal. Yes, it takes time to reach the other side. (Always longer than I’d like.) And that is normal.
Nothing had changed. I was no better prepared to teach tomorrow’s physics lesson. I was still gutted that my uncle had died the same week I left. I was grieving alone, away from family—a bad way to grieve. The local dialect still baffled me. My arms were covered in mosquito bites and my body, covered in sweat.
Nothing had changed in my circumstances. And yet, something shifted in me.
I was better oriented. I knew where I was. What I was dealing with.
Just like when you check a trail map and see the words YOU ARE HERE. It suddenly becomes clear why that last turn didn’t take you where you expected it to.
Once you know where you are, you can then figure out how to proceed.
Like a trail map, the article showed me, YOU ARE HERE. Only, HERE was located inside a tunnel called “the transition stage”. No wonder things seemed a bit distorted and echo-ey and I couldn’t seem to see where my feet were taking me.
Name Your transitions
By identifying and naming the transitions I was experiencing, that article gave me some assurances.
Adapting to big changes is hard. For everyone.
It was not just me or my lack of coping abilities. (And it is not just you, either.)
Transitions come with a bigger-than-usual helping of stress.
I was legit dealing with a lot. Feeling overwhelmed was a reasonable, appropriate response to my situation.
I’ve since learned a lot more about transitions. I’ve learned that nearly all transitions share some common traits. When we recognize these, transitions lose much of their power to derail and deflate us.
Naming your transitions can be powerful. Knowing and naming what you are dealing with and walking through makes the whole thing less disorienting. Yes, it may feel like you’re in a tunnel—having left your old normal life, but yet to settle into a new normal. Yes, it takes time to reach the other side. (Always longer than I’d like.) And that is normal.
Take a Little time… and then, a little more
Starting a new school year? “Give it six weeks,” Shauna Niequiest reminds us, citing her kindergarten-teaching cousin.
Okay, it’s been six weeks, so we should be all settled in now, right? Not quite.
Kelly Corrigan suggests college freshmen will need a solid eight weeks “to figure it out”. Anytime before that, the real answer to “How’s it going?” is “I have no idea.” (The same is probably also true for their moms.) These young people are adjusting to far more than a new class schedule. Many are away from home for the first time. There is a lot of new in their “new normal”.
It takes time to figure it out. That’s the transition stage.
An international move?
This comes with new schools, new job, new everything and all the emotion of leaving friends and family behind, to boot. Tanya Crossman of TCK (Third Culture Kid) training says “we talk a lot about the red zone and the Green Zone at TCK training.” In the red zone, we are “not in a good place emotionally, and…not coping. [In t]he Green Zone…things are calm and easy and I'm going at pretty much my normal.”
Crossman goes on to explain that they expect families—both the children and the adults—to be in the red zone for the first three months following a move. Did you catch that? It is normal to feel like you’re not coping well for the first three months. Normal.
Don’t let Tony Robbins or anyone else on Instagram tell you different. You aren’t going to feel awesome and in control every day. Not when you are adjusting to big changes.
Difficult is expected. She assures, “As long as that really difficult period is no more than three months, that's normal. You don't need to be worried about that.”
It can take 6 or even 12 months before families feel settled enough to be frequently in “the green zone”, where their new normal feels normal. If that red zone, emotional disregulation and struggling persist longer, seek help.
On the other hand, if you feel excessively emotional and your big change/ move/ loss is recent, know that is normal. You’re still in the tunnel.
Our tunnel
Just today, the admin at school asked how our kids are settling. It’s just six weeks in at a new school in a new town. Also, their older sisters moved out when we moved here. Those are big transitions.
And because I know these are big transitions, I can say they are where they should be. They miss their old friends and consider their old schools to be a bit better than their new one. And that is not cause to second guess our decisions or to freak out that their mental health is in crisis. We’re just still in the tunnel.
Our new doesn’t feel normal yet. But we’ll get there.
Note: these stories appear in my upcoming book on Transitions.