Navigating Major Life Transitions: Love, Loss, and the Journey to Connection
When I first held my children after they were born, I thought, “Hey...I know you. Oh my goodness.. I’ve never not known you. You've been here THE. WHOLE. TIME.” How can that be?! Seriously. How?! That question has opened my heart, over and over again, and it’s led me to develop what some call a peace that surpasses all understanding, more times than I could ever count. Loving and celebrating every version of them, then grieving that version to make room for the next expression of their humanness has been the ride of a lifetime. Birthing them made me infinitely less afraid of death because of that question I had when I first saw them, How did I know them before they were even here? The knowing is beyond my comprehension, but not beyond the wisdom of my body or the still small voice in my heart. When my mom died, I felt similarly taken aback by my connection to something bigger and I felt safer in the world with her beyond it. (Major Life Transitions: becoming a mother, having a baby, loss of a loved one)
When life as we knew it is gone and we, once again, find ourselves in transition, connection is vital—to self, others, and the divine. Creating and nurturing a support system matters more than I think we wish it did. Human connection is a need, not a luxury, for our health. It's not something you simply have or don't have, but something you ought to actively cultivate if you identify it’s absence. It's an investment, not always with money, but always with our time and care and—so sorry to say—our vulnerability. The best way to have a good friend is to be a good friend. When we allow ourselves the vulnerability to be seen, THAT’s the THING we need each other for. If you read about the importance of having a support system and felt immediately doomed as you realized no one has called or texted your phone in weeks, maybe months, pause. Can you allow yourself to orient, or at least see, another way of meeting this? Yes? Oh, good. Because there is another way. There is always another way. What if you made a commitment to yourself that you are going to reach out to a handful of people you already know and simply check in with them. What should you say? –whatever you wish someone would call/text you and say, say that. As Andrea Gibson beautifully puts it, "In any moment, on any given day, I can measure my wellness by this question: Is my attention on loving, or is my attention on who isn't loving me?"
When I finished graduate school and started working my dream job, I had a REALLY hard time adjusting. Interestingly, my experience giving birth, becoming a mother, early post-partum, and the death of my own mother were transitions I moved through with much acceptance. There was anxiety, mood swings, heaviness, and grief, but I felt like I was living in my body, in my life.I had an idea of what it was going to feel like when I was finally done with school and when I started a job I had been dreaming about for years. I thought, ever so subtly and totally subconsciously, that getting a degree and a license would give me something I didn't have before in relation to my success as a human being. It would "fill a hole" so to speak. It did not. I heard from someone that when we put our self-worth, in any way, on something "over there” and in the future, it never does what it's “supposed” to do. These transitions in my life brought up SO much existential anxiety, disappointment, loss of energy, and self-doubt. There was a lot I had to unpack with this one. And unpack I did. And relief I found. And boundaries I drew. And choices I made. And risks I took. (Major Life Transitions: graduating, starting a new job)
My wish for you is that you know that a sense of love and belonging in the tides and changes of life (and death) is your birthright. If you are feeling isolated in the births and the deaths that make you feel alive OR in the accomplishments and goals met that make you feel confusingly disheartened (or whatever your unique relationship to the marked transformations in your life are), I hope you let loneliness act as an agent for change and re-connection, somehow and someway. If you would like to share your experiences with major life changes—the ones that have gone swimmingly AND/OR the ones that took. you. out.—I would LOVE to hear about them! Please send me your stories at ecasciano@wholewellnesscounseling.org
All my love in all your transitions <3 EKC
