All of us go through changes in our lives, and we need to develop ways of dealing with them. Many years ago I came across the work of William Bridges. I often use this with my coaching clients, so thought I would share it here.
Our lives always involve change. We go through a series of phases – of endings, neutral zones and new beginnings. There is no rule as to how long these stages will take. And we can also be going through several of these at a time.
Endings can take many forms – redundancy, divorce, changing job, moving house, death and lots of smaller endings. These can feel very differently to different people and at different times. They can be painful, involving a similar grieving process to death, with similar stages of anger, denial and so on. They can feel like big decisions. There can be an element of relief. They can feel like a wrench, or leave us with a feeling of unfinished business.
It is important to give endings the respect and time they deserve. To understand what they mean or symbolise in your life. To understand what you are leaving behind or may have lost. To understand what you might need to do to bring about a feeling of closure. To understand what you want to take with you into the next stage. It is important to do that so you are able to move on without dragging elements of the ending into your new phase of life.
You then go into a Neutral Zone This is the period where you are coming to terms with the ending and are not quite ready for a new beginning. This can feel like a grey, in-between, holding pattern type of time… a bit like circling in an aircraft above an airport, not quite ready to land. It can feel frustrating. We can feel impatient and ask ourselves ‘why can’t I move on?’
This always makes me think of the Catholic concept of purgatory – where souls wait around before they are let into heaven … or like an astronaut who has been cast off from his spaceship and is floating – with his lifeline not yet attached to a new spaceship.
Bridges gives several useful guidelines in this time
So finally when we are ready, there will come a New Beginning – a chance to start afresh. This can feel like a hedgehog emerging from hibernation. Or an aconite coming up through the snow (hence the picture!). It may be you don’t even realise how much you have withdrawn into yourself until you start to feel this new release of energy. This can feel optimistic, although it can also be a bit nerve-racking.
The way we deal with the ending and the neutral zone will equip us to make the best of the new beginning.If we don’t allow ourselves to learn and be patient during those times, we will drag all the baggage with us into the new state and inevitably create repeating ‘ground-hog day’ type cycles.
For those of us who are reasonably competent, and capable, it can feel strange to go through this kind of vulnerability. If you think of the seasons, it is natural to have a winter time when the world withdraws into itself… it is always followed by hopeful Spring and then glorious Summer. But we ‘grown-ups’ act as if we should always be in Summer. There is a timing to this type of thing and we need to be patient.
Hope this is useful to you, or to those you may pass it on to
