Many of us navigate fairly sizeable transitions on a regular basis and just stumble through, doing our best. I’m learning there is a better way.

William Bridges devoted most of his working life to studying and writing about transitions. Though his body of work has been around for a long time, I discovered him only recently as I began deeply attending to my own transition process with my career. Then, just two weeks into launching a new business, my dear friend Seana died. It was a double whammy of change. And as I listened to others, I realized that many people around me were also going through significant transitions of all varieties in their lives. I sensed a collective hunger for some communal learning and support around this topic.

So, about a dozen of us are now spending one afternoon a month together delving into “Transitioning with Grace,” and we’re using Bridges' seminal text from 25 years ago, Transitions, Making Sense of Life’s Changes as our anchor. I love being new to an old idea.

Since this learning and process has been so helpful to me and others, I share both the process and a beautiful example of the first stage of transition in case you, too, seek a mindful approach to one or more transitions you find yourself in.

First, the big picture.

Bridges makes a helpful distinction between change and transition. Change is an event. It is situational and external to us. Something old stops, and something new starts. However, transition is a gradual psychological reorientation, which he describes as a three-phase process. It happens internally as we adapt to change.

The ENDING includes loss, letting go, getting closure, saying good-bye
The NEUTRAL ZONE is an in-between time that is often unstable, awkward, characterized by chaos or confusion
The NEW BEGINNING includes re-orientation, renewal, a new chapter, a willingness to be with whatever is

Notice that it's not linear! The phases overlap and can even all be occurring simultaneously. Psychological processes are anything but linear. Nevertheless, many of us try to skip right to New Beginnings without adequately acknowledging the other phases.

About endings, Bridges writes: “Every transition is an ending that prepares the ground for new growth and new activities. ... To become something else, you have to stop being what you are now; to start doing things a new way, you have to end the way you are doing them now; and to develop a new attitude or outlook, you have to let go of the old one you have now. … The first task is to let go. Start with an ending.”

In our first month together, the "Transitioning with Grace" group took the idea of letting go seriously. We attended to what we're saying good-bye to and letting go of. Fittingly, the Celebration of Life for Seana was last weekend, during the time when our group has been specifically focused on Endings. The event was a spectacular example of marking an ending, one that not only helps to continue to honor Seana, but also brings Bridges' words out of the theoretical and into the real. What did this example of saying good-bye look like?

175 of us came from near and far to assemble in the woods of Colorado to acknowledge Seana's death and celebrate her life with our whole selves. To honor her extraordinary life, we spent a full day together in an extraordinary space. We moved with mindfulness and did yoga to settle into our bodies. We hiked to remember our oneness with the natural world. We honored the four directions, chanted, meditated, were swept away by the didgeridoo. We heard the story of Seana’s life through different phases and voices, from childhood to her most recent days of creating the Restorative Leadership Institute. We ate, then shared more stories. Her dear love Barron gave us all the gift of singing his heart out with a 10-piece big band - because Seana would have loved it and it was time to dance. Nine hours later, we closed with a drum circle.

Now that’s an ending, one hell of a good way to say good-bye.

Taking a deep opportunity to step inside our grief and reflect in this way allowed us to revel in Seana's impact on each of us and on the world. To a person, she saw what we often couldn’t see in ourselves and helped us get on path to achieve our individual and collective dreams. Conscious ending helped us recommit to those dreams.

Though she’s with us only in spirit form, with no new earthly memories to make together, each of us is carrying Seana within us as a voice that tells the truth, sees potential, asks us to do what serves the highest good for all, creates joy, and encourages play. The countless numbers of us affected by her teaching, mentorship, friendship, writing, and collaboration will continue to carry what we learned through Seana’s touch. We have begun the transition process with reverent attention, and we started by honoring the ending.

Whatever your transitions include, I encourage you to take time to focus on what you're losing, ending, letting go of. It might seem obvious at first, but once you step more deeply into reflection, chances are you'll uncover more than you first imagined. May this intentional reflection serve you well.

When Great Trees Fall (excerpt)
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
Better. For they existed.
- Maya Angelou

Transitions: Begin with the End