Life Transitions Counselling & Coping with Changed Circumstances

How to cope with a life transition

How we cope with particular transitions, and how long it takes, depends on an individual and the particular circumstances. Similarly, one person can cope well with one transition but struggle with another, e.g. a mother coping very well with her children leaving home, but struggling with menopause and accepting the loss of aspects of her feminine physicality.

Sometimes we do not come to terms with a transition no matter how much time had passed. Queen Victoria never came to terms with loss of her husband. She kept his room and belongings untouched for years.

Regardless of individual differences, the transition cycle has a similar pattern for all of us, with specific feelings, emotions and appropriate strategies respectively.

Progress through that pattern is rarely a continuous improvement, it is more like two steps forward one step back, and we may be working through more than one transition at the same time.

Understanding where you are in your life transitions can help to normalise how you feel, gain hope for the future and encourage you to seek help if necessary.

It may be the case that you are experiencing feelings of anxiety, depression, and hopelessness, low self –esteem , self doubt  (links) – connecting those emotions or feelings, with your place on the transition curve may help in the therapy you are receiving for those issues.

Death of a close family member/friend

Life without Them, has to be rearranged, redefined and yet you need to find a way of keeping them close. What about your own mortality? These thoughts may have a profound impact of how we view our lives and highlight the need to change our priorities and values.

Divorce/separation or relationship breakup

How can I move on? Who will ever want me again? Looking at the past relationship and you part in it may instigate the change in how you view life and yourself, resulting in new behaviours and perception of the concept of a relationship itself.

Being a victim of abuse, rape, bullying

When your whole life explodes and any trust in people and fairness is destroyed.. how to re-evaluate what all those terms mean and find a way to live a life of a survivor, not a victim?

Loss of a job, redundancy

Your sense of self-worth and being valued were brutally challenged and perhaps your sense of safety and stability in life are crumbling. How to redefine “what is my worth” and answer “is my ability to cope with life depending on how I am perceived?”

Getting pregnant

Whether it comes after long months of trials or catches you out – and whether it happens to you or your partner – when it finally happens you are acutely aware that “it’s the end of the life as we know it”. Who are you and who do you want to be at the end of that journey?

Becoming a parent

You may have just about come to grips with your life and now you are totally responsible for the life of your child. Not only that. You have become their whole world and its wisdom for years to come. How to enjoy the process and not crumble under the weight of responsibility?

Not being able to have a baby

How to contain the loss of hope and identity of a parent, battle with sadness, anger, pain and disappointment – and then integrate it all into your life experience and develop a new narrative for “me and a family”

Menopause

This is not the end – although the society may let you feel that way. This is the beginning of a long and fertile future, although the concept of “fertility” is now yours to define, which is equally exciting and scary, because there aren’t many narratives for this age other than a “grandma”

Injury or illness

We are all guilty of taking our bodies for granted. Illness or injury are a stark reminder that your body is not a servant to your mind but a vital part of your identity, which is now being questioned and perhaps lost. How to understand that process and find peace between the loss and the new identity emerging slowly out of pain and sadness?

Winning a lottery etc.

Events which are undoubtedly positive and life enhancing can also trigger feelings of anxiety – “what if I change into someone I won’t like?” self-doubt – “I don’t deserve it, I will probably waste it anyway”, or just the opposite, invincibility – “I don’t have to worry about anything now!”. How to embrace the great news and use it as an opportunity to get to know yourself and grow?

Being promoted

“Be careful what you wish for” has just become true – you were dreaming about this for ages and now the doubt and anxiety are causing havoc in your mind. What if I am not good enough? How to embrace the opportunity and grow – despite impostor syndrome and daily doubts?

Leaving home

Whether leaving home to go to University or leaving your country to look for a better life your you and family – you let go of all the familiar and comfortable places, people, rituals and values. How to become accepted by the new environment without losing the sense of self, how to negotiate belonging versus integrity?

Retirement & feeling at sea

Your identity was defined largely by what you do, by your work and your role. How to create the new future whilst celebrating and cherishing the past with the equal amount of enthusiasm?

Gender Transition

You finally know what it is that you are struggling with and are ready to go for it. What you know is probably a tiny percentage in comparison with what you don’t know. Not because you haven’t done your research, but because this territory has very few maps, with many areas not explored. Ability to stay with the unknown will be your biggest asset in this expedition.

Coming out as gay, bi, trans

In your journey – whether gay, lesbian, queer, transgender or non-binary – you are possibly embarking on an ongoing battle between the needs of ‘you’ as a full deserving individual being, and of ‘you’ as a social being – a product of societal expectations, conditioned to assess your own happiness through the approval of others. Which is more important: staying true to self or to the values and beliefs that keep you and your community together? Being safe or being self?

Model Of Transition

How counselling can help to cope with life transitions

Whether you are aware of them or not, we all cope with transitions. When you say you can’t cope, what you mean is that:

• you don’t believe your coping strategy is effective: e.g. “I am still missing my child!”

Or

• that your coping style isn’t good enough: e.g. “I should be braver, or be crying less”
• perhaps you don’t know what strategies to employ, or the ones that you have employed have not worked
• maybe you feel that you don’t possess the skills or resources you believe would help

However, we do all have a range of responses and strategies that we employ during a transition experience, and the fact that you are reading this proves that you can cope.

Those skills and strategies can be developed.

If reading this page you identified yourself as being at one of the stages of life transition, and you are worried that you are ‘not coping’ – you may need some help with exploring what areas to search for new resources. The questions to ask would be:
1. Have you experienced a similar event before?
What were your resources and coping strategies then? Did they work? What is similar / different?You and your family are moving to another country. Perhaps you moved countries before, as a child, following your parents’ choice. Some elements of that transition will be relevant: culture assimilation, ability to make friends. The difference now might be that you are now a parent responsible for your child’s transition as well as your own.

2. Is this transition your choice or forced by circumstances?
Your journey through the transition stages will vary depending on how much agency/control you feel you possess. So, the transition you instigated – e.g. moving countries, feels different to one that you have to endure – serious illness, being ‘dumped’ by a partner.

3. What else is happening in your life that may support or jeopardise your movement through transition?
It is a common occurrence that once we go through one major event we may ignore the impact of other parts of life. For example, whilst moving countries you had to suspend decisions regarding your aging parents’ health and care, however you are still worrying about them.

4. What help is available? Are you aware when and how to ask for it?
Understanding your place on the transition journey may help you to identify what kind of help would be appropriate. In the stage of ‘self-doubt’ you may need a lot of space to talk and be heard rather than practical advice, as opposed to the stage of ‘testing new behaviours’, where you are ready to hear suggestions and take risks.

5. What do you know about ‘yourself in crisis’?
What have you learned about your ghosts and demons?

Character is what you are in the dark. Dwight L. Moody.

It is important to be aware not only of our strengths but also of who we become under pressure. Unfortunately, that cannot be foreseen until it happens. All we have is hope that we will live up to our standards, and sometimes we surprise ourselves by surpassing those hopes.

Sometimes ‘Living up to our standards’ doesn’t become reality.

E.g. you wanted to be a pillar of strength for you wife and children in a new country, but instead you are ridden by fear and doubt and take it out on them.

Very often this response can cause a sense of disappointment and depression and doesn’t help get through the transition.

What helps is accepting ‘who we are’ and employing this knowledge to obtain the best outcome. So, for example if you have been diagnosed with a health condition, you come to terms with your condition and seek support for yourself, and leave supporting your family to others. Courage is to accept that we are not as great as we thought and plough on regardless, taking our ghosts and shadows with us.