|
|
I had lunch with a colleague a few weeks ago. She’s been a nurse for 35-some-odd years, something we both have in common. Despite having some core similarities, particularly in answering the existential question of who I am and how am/did I contribute to this world, our careers took very different paths.
She has been focused on hospice, and I embraced the holistic model, leaning into self-healing and transitions. The hospice version of transitions is very different.
As we caught up, I could see the tension in her jaw and neck, and asked her about it. She chuckled as she shook her head. “Of course, you would notice when my words and my body didn’t match.”
It turns out she’s in the midst of a work transition, actually in the messy middle where there are more questions than answers, more uncertainty than certainty, and a whole lot of why the heck am I doing this?
She felt stuck and alone as if she kept circling the same problems and coming up with mostly the same answers. While she isn’t ready to retire, she also doesn’t want to be barreling full steam ahead, working fifty hours a week.
I’ve had my version of this many, many times, and have worked with hundreds of women going through it. Sometimes, it helps to know you’re not alone and that there are stages in transformation (**I have her permission to share this exchange)
A couple of quick truths –
- It always takes longer than you want/think it will.
- There will be highs, and there will be lows.
- There are three stages, and they overlap, circle back, and get messy.
- The Awareness stage – you’re aware a change needs to happen and working on figuring out what that might look like.
- The Messy Middle – you have one foot in the new and one in the old, limiting beliefs and resistance rear their ugly heads, and adapting to new habits, situations, and ideas can feel challenging.
- The Long Goodbye – letting go of old habits, situations, beliefs, and integrating new ways of being and showing up internally and externally. Leaning into what you’re in alignment with and letting go of what you’re no longer in alignment with.
- Most people overlook the power of using your energy flow to support you in the process; each stage calls for different energy.
Change, big and small, is an important part of growth. Getting the support you need can help ease the path. If you’re like me sometimes just what you need is what you push away.
Case in point: When I get stuck in a holding pattern, reaching out to a friend to noodle it through, doing some energy clearing, or taking a long walk on the beach almost always shifts my perspective, yet I resist doing it. My excuse is I don’t have time – but it takes significantly more time to try to muscle through than to do any of those things. But I forget. And I resist. It’s a human response.
My friend called yesterday. She cut back to four days a week and is aiming for three by the Fall. There are still a lot of moving parts, and she’s moving out of the Messy Middle, which feels good. Change really is so personal, and we do get to choose and help craft the next chapter.