Transitions and Transformations: Sacred Circle Reflection
A Reflection by Christine Jurisich
When Life Changes Shake Your World
A life change rocks your world. You feel as if you are in a state of free fall. You may be disoriented, even lost. You ask yourself, What happened to my security and support? Where am I going to land? How long is this going to last? I write about this kind of time for me from twenty years ago in my Retreat, Reflect, Renew personal retreat journal.
One by one, I was losing control of all the things I used to have a sense of peace in my life: first a career, then money, then a house, and then my community. Yes, I had a healthy and loving family, nuclear and extended. Yes, I went to church every Sunday. Yes, many people in the world have far worse problems. But we all use different things for a sense of stability and when we lose them, we fall apart. My foundation cracked and the only things I had known to hold me up were gone. I crumbled.
An Invitation Hidden Within Transition
A life transition is an invitation to a life transformation. If I had been told this twenty years ago—in the middle of that time of free-falling—I would have felt unheard and annoyed. You want me to look at the bright side? But you don’t understand what I’m feeling, I would have cried out in isolation. Yet looking back, I see how it was my choice to finally enter into the transition journey that allowed me to emerge on the other side transformed.
Recognizing Transition in Your Own Life
Life transitions come in all shapes and sizes. Are you noticing a stirring in you? Perhaps there is a change in your health or you are dealing with the challenges of you or your loved one aging.
It could be that you are experiencing a change you have been anticipating for years (e.g., graduation, retirement, empty nesting), and you are surprised by how hard it is to adjust.
What is happening to me? I feel like I should still be able to do everything I’ve always done. I never thought I would be a caretaker at this point in my life.
I miss my role as a mom with kids at home. I miss working and having a purpose in my life.
Or maybe you lost a loved one and are learning to cope with a dramatically new life.
Who am I without my loved one here with me? Will this aching feeling last forever?
Maybe nothing in your personal life has changed. Yet the division, violence, and unearthing of so much suffering and injustice throughout the world over the past several years has stirred something in you.
Where do I belong in this fast-changing world? How am I called to respond to all this suffering?
Understanding Change vs. Transition
It is helpful to know that there is a difference between a change and a transition. A change is something you experience on the outside. It is external and situational. Moving into a new house, getting a job promotion, and sending your child off to kindergarten or college are all examples of change. A transition is what happens inside you. Transition is the internal process of letting go of the way things used to be. It is the time it takes to surrender, accept, and find a new perspective or even a new way of life. When you are in transition, you are sorting through what this new way of life means for you. This takes time.
The Many Emotions of Transition
Some life transitions are exciting. You want time to process and celebrate your growth. Others are deeply painful. You need time to find new footing. Many are somewhere in between. You feel a vague sense of something different. I invite you to look at your transitional time as a journey to explore with an awareness of the potential for growth within yourself, with others, and with God.
Entering the Questions
Changes in your life can be unnerving. Reflecting on them may seem even more so, yet when you start to ask the big questions (What does this change mean for me? How am I called to let go? Where is God in all of this?), you can begin to slowly live into the answers. When life is going well, we often do not ask the tough questions. As a result, we may not grow into our full potential. Change is frequently the catalyst for growth and spiritual renewal.
When you feel as if your world is rocked and you are in a free fall, instead of running away from the questions, give yourself time to sit with them. Welcome the questions. Pray with them. Know that God is with you in them. Let God hold you as you surrender to the unknown. This time of letting go helps you be open to creative ideas.
Making Space for Grace
When you are not preoccupied with trying to "fix it," you are allowing room for God's grace to enter your heart and soul. Your place of surrender brings you to a place of vulnerability and even desperation. I give up! I'll try anything! This surrendering is when creative ideas and options start to trickle into your head and heart, and you begin to listen. You are empty enough to hear the quiet, still voice of God. Your questions are slowly revealing their answers because you have stopped searching for your own. That is when a life transition becomes a life transformation.
Did this reflection resonate with you?
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