Bridging Transitions
If you are a human, you have experienced transition. Transition, simply put, is the process of moving from one state of being to another. Whether it be transitioning from childhood to adolescence, graduating high school, moving to a new city, starting a new job, or becoming a parent—transition is a natural part of life that comes in many shapes and sizes. While transition is normal, many of us tend to be ill equipped to identify it in its various forms and give room to experience its highs and lows.
Because everyone experiences transition, better understanding its ins and outs will help us to be more present to ourselves and those around us who are in the midst of transitions. Transition seasons can also provide opportunities to experience the presence of God. These opportunities for presence and connection are made possible because the pruning shears of transition cut away at our habits and rhythms. Once bare and vulnerable, we are faced with two choices: hide or press in.
Over the course of these next three blog posts, I will be sharing about transition. In this first post, I want to spend time talking about what transition is and how we experience it through a tool called the Transition Bridge. In the next post, I will explore how transition can be a place of encounter with the presence of God. In the final post, I will look at how these threads come together and can help us think through shifts and transitions in our forms of church and community. As we grow in our ability to identify and acknowledge moments of transition in our own lives, we will be better equipped to say yes to the Lord’s invitations to experience his presence in deeper ways.
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A few years ago, I had the opportunity to move to another country to work with an international school. Because of the nature of the move, many of my conversations were concerned with transition. HR resourced me about the nature of transitions, coworkers asked how my transition was coming along, and I shared with my family back home about my transition. While the transition was difficult, the openness around the topic helped it to feel less daunting.
One of the most helpful resources I received when moving overseas was the Transition Bridge. The Transition Bridge is a simple tool that helps to give language to the experience people go through in their social status, social pressure, and psychological experience as they move from a place of being settled, to unsettling, to chaos, to resettling, then to a new place of being settled. While the Transition Bridge uses broad generalizations, my hope is that it helps you in whatever transition you might find yourself in.
The Settled Stage
The settled stage is the rooted stage that precedes a transition. This is you in your current job, current city, or current stage of life. You are not thinking about transition in a given area, but merely living life. In the settled stage your social status is defined by belonging. You are a part of the “in” group, you have reputation, you are firm in your position, you feel known, and you have deep friendships. The social pressure that you experience is defined by commitment. You feel the need to be responsible, responsive, and a friend. The psychological experience in this stage is marked by intimacy. Overall, you feel affirmed, secure, and safe. And then transition begins.
The Unsettling Stage
In this stage, you know a transition is about to occur or swiftly begins so you must start the process of pulling up. Your social status now begins to feel marked by separating. You begin to pursue closure, seek recognition and attention for the role or season you are leaving, you might have celebrations and farewells, and many begin to experience withdrawal and exclusion. The social pressure of this stage is to begin disengaging. Because you are transitioning, you must relinquish your roles, you intentionally and/or unintentionally begin to distance yourself and loosen ties (which might lead to conflict), you may seek closure, and you might experience yourself criticizing the settled stage you are leaving. The psychological experience of this stage tends to be defined by denial. You try to reassure yourself that the change isn’t going to be that big. Additionally, there is often a sense of rejection, resentment, grief, and sadness that accompany the Unsettling Stage.
The Chaos Stage
Having pulled up your roots, you then enter the most uncomfortable stage of the journey—the Chaos Stage. In this stage, people often feel rootless and floundering. The social status of this stage is marked by feeling unknown. Where you once felt a sense of belonging, you now feel statusless, structureless, clueless, and that you have special knowledge that is without use. The social pressure of this stage is pure chaos. Problems tend to be exaggerated due to the stress of this stage, you easily misunderstand others or are yourself misunderstood, you feel isolated, you experience ambiguity, you might act out of self-centeredness, and you feel the overwhelming pressure to initiate with others because others are not initiating with you. The psychological experience of this stage is anxiety. You feel that you have lost your self-esteem, you have lost your community, you experience grief, and you likely feel disappointed with the transition you are in—especially if you chose it. It is common for people to feel that they have made a mistake and potentially think about turning back. This stage is often the most difficult and therefore requires the most grace and patience. But as the saying goes, it is darkest just before dawn.
Re-Settling Stage
After the darkness of the Chaos Stage, the transition journey continues with the Re-Settling Stage. In this stage, life begins to normalize, but only at a surface-level depth. In this stage, one’s social status tends to feel marginal and tentative. There is a superficiality, a sense of tentative acceptance, an uncertainty of one’s place and usefulness, an awkwardness with misinterpreting behavior and signs in your new stage, and multiple temporary relationships. In this stage, the social pressure is defined by introducing yourself in order to move past feeling marginal. People often spend time observing and trying out new rhythms as they seek to find the “new normal.” Risk taking is necessary in this stage and people often seek out mentors or people established in their new place to help them with the transition. While seeking new relationships, people also tend to feel hesitancy and trust issues stemming from the recent memory of severed ties from their previous Settled Stage. Those in the Re-Settling stage have the psychological experience of feeling vulnerable. People feel easily offended, fearful, ambivalent, tired, and depressed. These feelings, however, are often mixed with glimpses of tentative hope, connection, and determination. Having gone through these stages, one can finally begin to feel settled again.
New Settled Stage
The New Settled Stage mirrors the Settled Stage from the beginning of the Transition Bridge. While the social status, social pressure, and psychological experience are the same, the way these things look is often entirely different from where you began. Your routines, friends, and place may no longer be the same, but you now feel rooted. Another important distinction between the beginning and end of the Transition Bridge is that you have changed—for better or worse. You now know new things about yourself and the world that you did not previously know before you began the transition.
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If you listen closely, conversations involving transition happen all around you. You might hear someone say, “Our last child is about to graduate and leave the house. We’re so excited for him, but we are also feeling sad. We have noticed he’s been a little distant from us, and we’re not sure why.” Or you might hear your spouse grieve, after a year of living in a new city, the lack of deep relationships. Having read the above sections, you might helpfully identify that these people are still in the midst of transition. Simply naming the stage of transition and telling someone that they’re experiencing normal feelings can go a long way in helping to comfort them and come alongside them in the journey.
It is here that I must also caution you that the Transition Bridge is merely a tool—it is descriptive not prescriptive. Just because someone might identify with one stage does not mean that all of the described elements pertain to them. It is also important that we don’t try to rush people through a transition. Because transitions are vulnerable, exercise discernment when sharing this tool.
In my next post, I will share how the Father can use transition as a means to call us into greater intimacy with him. In the meantime, consider these following questions:
Are there areas in my life where I resonate with one of the described transition stages? What do I need right now?
Are there people in my life (spouse, children, friends, coworkers) who might be going through a transition right now? If so, how might I lovingly come alongside them in their transition journey?
Here is a visual representation of the Transition Bridge:
