I read an article just the other day about how we are increasingly expecting to get new things NOW! Once we would have planned to go to the shops and hunt around until we found the right thing. More recently, the rise of shopping online meant that we might have selected what we want, but then have to wait a few days to get it. Today we can often pay a little more for “expedited delivery” and get it, if not now, then very shortly.
This is relatively OK when we are talking about things, but what about when we are talking about life? Often we hear in the news where people say “now this court case is over, I can move on.” Or the unspoken expectation that after a funeral support is no longer needed (spoiler alert, support is even more important after the funeral when other people forget). We expect that we can move from one state to another almost instantly and our society often supports this idea.
Transition is the psychological journey between two ways of being and it is anything but instant. Change starts with something new being implemented. Transition, on the other hand, starts with the ending – the celebrating or commemorating of the old. Even then it does not move into the something new. There is a time in between, a time of waiting. It is even a time of anxiety and unsettledness when the old is no longer relevant, but we do not know what the new will look like.
As we approach a time of endings and beginnings, how can you make the time to sit with patience between the old and the new? What are the transitions that are needed in your life?
