Through The Looking Glass: The Discomfort of Change

Discomfort: A word perfectly fitting for ramblings about things like endings and change and fear of the unknown.

Some people embrace endings with gusto, making changes in their lives as often as they change socks. I ain’t one of ‘em. They make me uncomfortable. I love stability and predicatibility and I like to know that my French Vanilla coffee will be freshly brewed and ready for me when I wake up at 4:39. When Change comes knockin’ I want to hang out the “no solicitors” sign then draw the curtains and retreat inside. I want to snuggle up in my cocoon until the metamorphosis is through, instead of embracing the beautiful, subtle, sometimes painful changes that have to happen as I grow new wings and transition into something new.

I am in Transition, my life punctuated with question marks as I navigate slick new terrain. I say goodbye to the first home I ever owned as I look and save for a new nest. I try my hand at a new career path at my job; I process the fact that my bright, 18-year-old daughter is an adult now and doesn’t need me in quite the same ways she used to. My gut tells me to trust in the transformations, but it doesn’t make the process easier. Some days I feel like I’m outgrowing life itself, like when you try on last winter’s jeans and realize they’re too small.

The changes are internal, too. Things that used to matter to me seem somewhat trivial now. And while I care deeply about my work, my measure of success is less about what it says on my business card, and more about how I can be the most authentic version of myself.

My family and friends are my fierce cheerleaders. My sister-in-law Kathy understands where I am, and gives me a life-changing book that I’m shouting about from the rooftop. In Transitions—Making Sense of Life’s Changes, William Bridges brilliantly taps into my soul and gives me a little solace when he talks about endings.

“Considering that we have to deal with endings all our lives, most of us handle them poorly,” he writes. This is in part because we misunderstand them… we take them too seriously by confusing them with finality. We see them as something without sequel, forgetting that they are the first phase of the transition process and a pre-condition of self-renewal.”

Ah, that’s a relief, I think. I’m self-renewing.

Self renewing, I decide, is both exhausting and exhilarating. Exhausting because I find myself fearful of the unknown, and exhilarating because well, I don’t know what’s going to happen next. See the pattern? Smack in the middle of the self-renewal stuff, Bridges explains, is the “Neutral Zone.” It’s that space where we’re confused and feeling empty and find ourselves thinking “might I be crazy?” It’s where we take an often “unproductive time-out.” It’s there, Bridges says, in our unscheduled, seemingly aimless time alone that we are actually undergoing our transformation.

Ah, more relief.

The Neutral Zone lets me take space between jumping into the next thing, lets me run through the gamut of emotions that come with the end of a phase: I can reflect and appreciate and cry ugly tears and celebrate the fact that many areas of my life aren’t what they used to be. Then, with perspective and peace I can take a deep breath and move into the next phase with a new plan, a new energy and excitement.

In the Neutral zone I don’t have to think, I can just BE, trusting that the internal transitions and external changes are happening just as they should be.

I tell my cool artist friend Cindy that I’m sitting in the Neutral Zone and she immediately gets it. She says, “even though you think you’re doing nothing, it doesn’t mean that things aren’t happening.”

More relief.

As I embrace the Neutral Zone, staying open to its timeline and outcomes, I practice patience and trust. I (begrudgingly) stay patient with the process, trusting that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

And really, that’s all any of us can do, right? Until next time…embrace your Neutral Zone.