William Bridges

William Bridges only reluctantly started writing this book
when he was going through a period of change himself and
found that there were no guides to transition. To his surprise,
Transitions found an immediate niche and has sold over a quarter
of a million copies. It is quietly passed from one person to another.
The depth of the book is that it is not just a manual on "how to
cope," but gets us to see that the process of disorganization, death, and
renewal is fundamental to nature and a central theme in mythology.
Rather than stability, this cycle is the natural state of affairs. We all
intuitively know this, but Bridges says that admitting it to yourself, and
looking more closely at the process, will make the inevitable times of
change easier to deal with.
The way of transition
One of the interesting things about transition is the way it descends on
us unexpectedly. Many women and couples have a hard time dealing
with the loss of time and freedom that accompanies a newborn baby in
their lives, for example. Before they can enjoy the marvel of the child,
they have to deal with the ending of their old, less restricted life.
A man came to one of Bridges' group meetings on dealing with life
transitions who had recently received a big promotion. His family were
now getting everything they had wanted, but psychologically he was
finding it hard to deal with. Why? We all have our patterns of living
and in a way it doesn't really matter whether we were happy with them
or not—when they change there is a loss. Even a musician toiling away
in small clubs for years who suddenly finds herself a star or a lottery
winner will need a time of adjustment.
The morale is: Focus less on whether an event is good or bad, but
whether or not it involves an important change of life for you. And
don't be worried if the event seems relatively inconsequential; it maymerely be the most obvious symbol of change, when there are deeper
rumblings in the psychological ground beneath.
The only constant is change
It can be useful to see transition within the context of a larger life journey.
Many social scientists see age 30 as a key turning point, a moving
from youth to real adulthood, where in the past this point was 21. Men
come to Bridges and say, "I seem to be entering old age and have
barely got out of adolescence!" The fact is that transitions happen
throughout our life and don't necessarily correspond to a set age.
Bridges discusses the myth of Odysseus and his long journey home
through many trials and tribulations. Though a great leader, Odysseus
found that he had to unlearn many of the ways he had dealt with life in
the past. One of the messages of transition is that we can't be the same
person doing the same thing all our life. When you are young you
imagine that from age 30 until death life is one unbroken plain of stability.
However this is rarely so, and if life seems too settled you either
choose to make changes or have them forced on you.
Following is a rough outline of Bridges' three stages of transition,
which follow the "rites of passage" identified by anthropologists and
evident in the most tribal rituals.
Endings
To have a new beginning you need to acknowledge an ending. It is universal
practice among traditional peoples that when one of their number
is about to undergo an inner transition they are taken out of their
normal daily life. In our times of change we may feel this need for disengagement
from our normal experience.
This can be followed by a sense of disidentification, when we don't
know quite what know who we are any more. The old motivations are
gone. Another stage is disenchantment, the point when we realize that
how we saw the world was not a very good reflection of reality after
all. This can be the first stage of transition, but also the last, as it flattens
the ground for a new beginning and way of seeing the world.
We all have different styles when it comes to coping with an ending,
but each ending may reawaken old hurts or feelings of shame. If you
were made to feel unworthy as a child, each seeming failure in later lifewill bring acute pain as you are reminded of perceived unworthiness.
Although they sometimes feel like it, endings are not the end of us. In
tribal cultures they are ritualized so that the person sees an ending not
as something final, but as a necessary stage to bring new life.
The neutral zone
We usually want to escape as quickly as possible from this uncomfortable
time after the shock of an ending. It could, however, be one of the
most valuable times in your life, when because you have been "broken
open" you are also ready to consider other ways of being and doing.
Bridges has some suggestions for your time in limbo:
1 Make sure that you find time to be alone. Welcome the emptiness.
Go somewhere with few distractions where you can do literally
nothing, but don't expect any great revelations. The point is to pay
attention to your dreams and thoughts.
2 Keep a diary or log of your neutral-zone experiences, or write your
autobiography. Give yourself the chance to "rewrite" your life story.
3 Try to discover what you really want, what your purpose for living
may be. If your life ended today, what you do feel you should have
done by now?
Many of the great figures of history (St. Paul, Mohammed, Dante,
Buddha) saw the need to "go into the woods" or the desert. Your
intention may not be to save the world, but be reassured that humans
have been going into retreat, and needing to do so, for thousands of
years.
New beginnings
How do we know when the neutral zone can be left behind? When do
we make our great new start? Beginnings can often only be seen in
retrospect—they don't seem impressive at the time. We meet someone
who ends up being our spouse at a party we didn't want to go to, we
happen to open a book at a friend's place that changes us for ever.
When we are ready to move on, opportunities will appear and it will
be an exciting time. But be easy on yourself and maintain at least some
form of continuity with your old life. Fresh with your insights fromlimbo time, don't be too disheartened if things don't move as quickly as
you would like. Bridges recalls the Zen saying, "After enlightenment,
the laundry."
Final comments
If you have experienced a significant transition, whether it be a divorce,
going back to university, or starting a new career, a common feeling is
that you are going "back to square one," that all the previous years
have been wasted. You are likely to think, "Maybe I should have
stayed doing what I was doing—it wasn't that bad, was it?"
Hopefully, Bridges' book can be a support and a motivator, because
it shows us that transition is not the end of everything but a cyclical
process whose ultimate reward is a sense of direction much clearer than
you have had before. The author quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson, who
said, "Not in his goals but in his transitions man is great." If you can
become skilled at getting through difficult periods, you will feel much
more confident to cope with life generally.
This classic may not seem attractive right now, but try to remember
it when you next start to feel that a period of stability is coming to a
close.