Coping With Change

Research shows that most people experience a major life transition every 12 to 18 months. These events can be personal, like a divorce or job loss, or shared, like the COVID-19 pandemic. As much as we would love to think it is, life isn’t linear. We tend to have the idea that it’s about fixed milestones (go to college at 18, buy a house and “settle down” with a life partner in your 30s, have children, an ever more successful career and ever more healthy finances, followed by a well-earned, financially and socially supported retirement. It could be said that the gap between our linear expectations and reality is a source of much of our anxiety and stress!! For most of human history, there were no clocks or linear time. People lived in agricultural economies and thought life followed a cyclical path. But today we don’t live in an industrial age; we live in a global, interconnected, post-industrial world where information, opportunity, threats, and change come at us at all times from all directions – from our own family, from our community, or, as in the Covid-19 pandemic, from events from all corners of the globe.

What are the major life transitions that divert us from our linear path?

Some examples are: leaving home, going to college, moving in with a partner, becoming a parent, the end of a relationship, moving to a new location or house, job loss, promotion, career change, menopause, children leaving home, ageing, retirement, diagnosis, coping with chronic illness, becoming a caregiver, recovering from injury, finding meaning and purpose, the loss of a loved one and ultimately, death and dying. There are also the expected milestones that don’t happen – such finding a long-term partner, or becoming a parent or grandparent or becoming financially secure.

Author Bruce Feiler, in his excellent book Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age, explains that most people experience a major transition—or what he calls a “lifequake”—every 12 to 18 months. (He has also delivered a TEDtalk on this.) These events can be personal, like a divorce, or shared, like the COVID-19 pandemic. Research has shown that about 53% of life transitions are out of our control, while 47% are chosen.

Feiler experienced a series of “lifequakes” in his forties, including cancer, near bankruptcy and his father’s suicide attempts. Those trying times made Feiler realise how much of life is spent in upheaval, and how vital it is to develop tools to help navigate these disrupting periods, leading him to research how others successfully rebuild their lives and find new meaning. He interviewed 255 Americans about their personal lifequakes. He concluded that a well-balanced life has three ingredients, which he calls the ABCs of meaning.

A is Agency — what we do, make, build or create; often that’s through work.
B is Belonging — your relationships, family, colleagues and friends.
C is a Cause — a calling, purpose or something higher than yourself.

He says that we experience regular life disrupters, and can usually find the inner resources to cope and keep moving forwards. However, a lifequake is a massive burst of change which leads to a period of pain and confusion — but can also, if handled properly, lead to a period of growth and renewal. The average length of a lifequake is five years, and we often have three, four or five in a lifetime. Benefits of Life Transitions & Change

Transitions provide opportunities for personal growth and self-discovery, as they often require you to step outside of your comfort zone and adapt to new circumstances. As a result, life transitions can lead to increased self-confidence and a sense of accomplishment as you successfully navigate and overcome the obstacles that come with change.

How can counselling help?

Therapy which looks at these kinds of issues is essentially a journey with a fellow traveller, offering support and shared humanity rather than a client/expert relationship. Rather than solely addressing symptoms (such as anxiety, sadness, anger), this approach encourages clients to explore the larger questions of life and develop a deeper understanding of their own existence. By confronting these universal concerns, clients often find a greater sense of purpose, acceptance, and inner peace.

Acknowledging what we are feeling, managing uncertainty and change, considering new perspectives, looking towards the future, perhaps one that is different to what we expected and setting realistic goals, cultivating self-care, sometimes grieving the loss we have experienced.

I love the work of Irvin D. Yalom, now aged 95, writer, speaker and still the American emeritus psychiatrist at Stanford University. According to Yalom, major life transitions—such as aging, retirement, divorce, illness, or bereavement—strip away our everyday distractions, forcing us to face fundamental existential anxieties of being human.

Experiencing lifequakes or transitions?! I’d love to talk to you.

Book a counselling session today!