3 Powerful Ways to Better Handle Transitions
It’s the end of summer, which for me always signals that bittersweet “back-to-school” feeling. On one hand, I’m sad to let go of the longer sunny days, trips to the beach, and summer Fridays long weekends. On the other hand, I look forward to cooler fall weather in New York City, and the structure of the school year for my teenagers. Put more simply, what I struggle with is the challenge of change. If you do too, read on to learn 3 powerful ways to better handle transitions that I hope will provide a more easeful shift from summer to fall for you and your family.
THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGE
Most of us underestimate the impact of transitions on our emotional, psychological and family systems. We think we’re supposed to be able to shift gears easily from either one moment to the next, one location to the next, one season to the next, one life phase to the next. But transitions, like all changes, are challenging! We humans thrive on homeostasis; it helps us feel safe and familiar. Anything that disrupts our homeostasis, whether planned or unplanned, creates some disharmony in our sense of stability that can be unpleasant or even overwhelming.
Adding to the challenge of change is your own personal history. Did you move around a lot as a kid without a lot of support on the impact of leaving your school, friend groups and familiar family home? Did you grow up in a chaotic family where stability and safety was not something you could rely on? Did you have authoritarian parents, who didn’t make much room for your feelings, or permissive parents who didn’t provide much structure for you growing up?
Not to place blame or pass the buck, but your early life experiences – for better or worse – inform how you handle the challenge of change, big or small, throughout your life. Unconsciously absorbing the messages from your parents and your culture, means that you may be unwittingly approaching the challenge of change in ways that are making it more difficult. But don’t fret, because there are 3 powerful ways to better handle transitions that you can easily and immediately put to good use.
3 POWERFUL WAYS TO BETTER HANDLE TRANSITIONS
As you face this transition from summer to fall, try using Acknowledgment, Validation and Values-driven action to ease the challenge of change. Try this every time you or your kids need to transition and find out for yourself how powerful these simple steps can be.
1. Acknowledge your feelings.
Your unconscious mind communicates to you through your feelings. Your feelings during transitions might be especially difficult if you had to face change frequently or in an unsupported way as a child. Becoming more aware of the emotions and sensations that come up for you during transitions and naming them, is a powerfully simple way to take the edge off when you face the challenge of change.
Rather than pushing your feelings away, or beating yourself up for having a hard time, simply slow down and take notice of what you’re feeling or sensing. You may be able to notice a sensation of anxiety. Name it: “this is a feeling of anxiety” and notice what happens. By making the unconscious conscious, by just acknowledging your emotions, you start to take care of yourself in a new way that might make the challenge of change a little bit easier.
If you have kids, you can use this with them, too. If your child is acting out or being “difficult” facing a transition, try naming what you think they might be feeling. Acknowledge and check in on their feelings: “Sometimes it’s upsetting to shift gears. Are you feeling upset by this change?”
Acknowledging your and your kids’ feelings is a powerful way to better handle transitions.
2. Validate your experience.
The second of 3 powerful ways to better handle transitions is to use validation. Once you acknowledge and name your feelings or your child’s feelings, validate the experience! Too frequently, we place unrealistic demands on ourselves to be able to breeze through the challenge of change effortlessly, without considering how destabilizing change is to our systems. Validation means supporting yourself and your experience: “Change is hard! It makes sense that I’m feeling anxious with this transition.”
Even if you welcome change, it is still disruptive on some level to your homeostasis! So acknowledge and then validate that experience. When you make sense of yourself and your experience, it relieves you of the burden of perfectionism. When you validate your kids’ feelings, they feel understood and sane. Watch what happens when you start to use the magical skill of validation.
3. Take Values-driven action.
Most of us are driven by the desire to avoid pain and seek pleasure. When facing a transition, it’s normal that you might dread the challenge of change because the disruption to homeostasis can be unpleasant! Unconsciously avoiding unpleasantness can mean you don’t take the time and effort to set yourself up for success when facing life transitions. You might procrastinate, deny reality, or try to make yourself feel better by eating a lot of sugary snacks or drinking too much alcohol.
When we are misaligned with our values and not following through on them, we tend to feel worse about ourselves, which leads to more avoidance or pleasure-seeking as a means to feel better. Around and around we go.
To stop the cycle and get yourself back on track, clarify your deepest-held values and then use them as a framework for making decisions and taking action. It’s okay to feel anxious and reluctant when facing transitions, but you don’t have to wait to feel better in order to do better.
Aligning your behavior with your values means committing to what matters most, even if it’s not easy. The irony is, the more you choose to follow through on your values-driven action, the easier it gets.
By mindfully using these 3 powerful ways to better handle transitions, you and your family may become less daunted by the challenge of change. If facing transitions is something you feel so overwhelmed by that you are unable to handle them at all, reach out to us today. Mindfulness-based therapy at Sentient Psychotherapy in New York City can definitely offer supportive solutions to help you better understand your difficulty and face the challenge of change with more ease and grace.