Life Transitions and Grief

The book of life has many chapters.

Life transitions are when one chapter in your life closes, and a new one begins.

Life changes are planned or unplanned, welcome or unwelcome, chosen or thrust on us. Some changes are sudden, and some are gradual.

When change occurs, we sometimes need a period of adjustment, especially if the change creates intense emotions and uncertainty.

Change pushes us out of our familiar, sometimes comfortable space and into circumstances that feel unsettling, unfamiliar, different. Sometimes the transition to change goes reasonably well. At other times, change leads to confusion, fear, pain, or loss and feels overwhelming.

Therapy helps you find your footing, adjust to change, and forge a path forward.

Grief is a natural and normal reaction to loss.

When we lose someone or something important to us, the transition from before to after can be jarring and abrupt. It can knock the wind out of us. Especially for significant losses, these transitions are often more abrupt, without time or resources to plan for them. Even when we have a heads up… there are parts you can’t prepare for.

Grief elicits deeply felt emotions, including distress, mental suffering, and sorrow. It is not a singular emotion or just a state of being, but a complex process. One that is unique to each person in each experience.

Healing from grief requires going through grief to get to the other side. There is no right way or wrong way to grieve, no formula to follow, or timeframe to keep.

It doesn’t matter if the cause of grief was 5 days ago, 5 months ago, or 50 years ago. It’s a painful and often confusing experience.

Grief elicits deeply felt emotions, including distress, mental suffering, and sorrow. It is not a singular emotion or a state of being, but a process. Healing from grief requires going through grief to get to the other side.

When your grief feels unbearable, too hard, unimaginable, or overwhelming, therapy can help you work through the brambles, thorns, and muddy paths that lead to healing.

Rites of passage represent more positive transitions.

Rites of passage are transitions that bring joy and good tidings. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t loss or sadness along with the change.

Attending college is a time of independence from your family, even if you are unsure what to expect.

Starting a career, getting married, or having a baby are significant transitions in anyone’s life. But with joy comes responsibility. Buying, selling, or renovating a house is a big exciting event, but loan payments are required, even during economic downturns.

Then, your children leave, and you become an empty nester. Now, you and your spouse must learn to interact on a new level and perhaps get to know each other again.

Finally, you reach the retirement age. Now what? You have all that time, and hopefully, you have a plan.

It’s okay to feel sad about change and acknowledging a loss, even for the good stuff! If we don’t have a safe place to talk about the worries and fears of change, we can get stuck, even around “positive” life transitions. The fear can win. And then we miss out on the joys.

Detours cause changes in direction.

“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
– Robert Burns

Ooof! These are the life-changing, plan-busting, and gut-wrenching potholes of life. Whether it is happening to us or a loved one, these life detours take us down paths we never intended to take. They lead us through experiences we would never have chosen at an emotional and often financial cost. They change everything.

After a tragic loss (death, divorce, serious accident, natural disaster, etc.), rebuilding your life is not a simple transition.

Living with a chronic illness for yourself or a loved one, as well as parenting a child with special needs, adds challenges that many cannot comprehend.

An infertility diagnosis affects your plans and dreams for family building.

Diagnosis of a terminal illness, whether for yourself or a loved one, cuts short many of your plans. Alternatively, as a member of the “Sandwich Generation,” you find yourself caring for aging parents and raising children all at once.

These are the life changes that can test us emotionally, socially, and financially.

Find relief and support through therapy.

Therapy isn’t a fix for either the expected or unexpected transitions, but it can be a buffer.

Through therapy, you find support, a respite from the chaos, and a place to catch your breath.

Therapy helps you gain focus on yourself, even if it is for an hour each week.

Whether it is the closing of a chapter, the beginning of a chapter, or traversing an unplanned chapter, therapy can help.

Let’s chat.