Walking Through That Open Door

1. Walking Through That Open Door Making Sense of Life’s Transitions

2. Who Are We? David Riley Carol Nichols age 32age 27

3. What do you hope to gain from this workshop?

4. Our Goals • Understand that transition is a normal process with recognizable phases • Recognize how you have dealt with transition in the past • Formulate some ways to cope with transitions in your life and even to allow it to transform you • View transition from a faith perspective, as a way to new life and growth

6. Primary Sources William Bridges Elizabeth Harper Neeld

7. What is Transition? Transition is the process of letting go of the way things used to be and then taking hold of the way they have become. Transition is the way that we respond to, and come to terms with change. Transition is the process of making meaning in the changes that happen to us or that we cause. William Bridges

8. Bridges’ Phases

9. Why do we resist transition? • It takes longer than change • It sets up resonance between present and painful past. • Overwhelmed

10. Rules for Understanding Rule #1: In transition you find yourself coming back in new ways to old activities

11. Rule #2 Every transition begins with an ending.

12. Endings • Sudden unexpected event • “drying up” of a situation or relationship that once felt vital • An activity that always went well goes badly • A person or organization breaks trust • An unforeseen problem crops up at the worst possible time.

13. Aspects of Endings • Disengagement • Disidentification • Disenchantment • Disorientation

14. Personal Stories of Transitions Carol Dave

15. Name a transition that you are currently going through, one that you recently went through, or one that you are planning to undertake. Where are you in the process at this point? What has changed in you?

16. Rule #3 • Although it is helpful to understand our style of doing endings, there is a part of us that will resist that understanding.

17. Kinds of Changes • Loss of relationship • Changes in Home Life • Personal Changes • Work and Financial Changes

18. What is the Purpose of Transition? • Reorientation of the Self • Personal Growth • Authenticity • Creativity • Spirituality

19. Renewal and Rebirth: Transformation

20. Tough Transitions: Navigating Your Way Through Difficult Times

21. Navigating Tough Transitions An orientation map:

22. Navigating Tough Transitions Responding

23. Navigating Tough Transitions Reviewing What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope?

24. Navigating Tough Transitions Reviewing Where is/was God?

25. Navigating Tough Transitions Reorganizing

26. Navigating Tough Transitions • Three strategies for exploring who I need to be: • Look at others. What works? • Ask, “What would I do differently from the past? • For what can I be grateful?

27. Navigating Tough Transitions Renewing

28. Navigating Tough Transitions Creative and Victorious Outcomes • Ability to feel joy • Capacity for empathy • New Appreciation for people and things • Renewed relationship with God • Freedom to be more authentic

29. Navigating Tough Transitions • Recovering a sense of humor • Hope as vision, as trust, as absolute

30. At some point you have to realize that some people
can stay in your heart, but not in your life. Unknown Source

31. There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle Albert Einstein

32. We die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason. Dag Hammarskjold