When Calm Waters Get Rough: Navigating Life Transitions – Episode 484

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Life transitions when we are young are fun! We are hopeful, optimistic and energetic.

Life transitions when we get older are more difficult, especially the unexpected or unwanted ones.

What can we do when the waters of change get rough?

How can we navigate life transitions that are difficult, overwhelming, or painful.

The fact is that we are designed for these transitions, difficult as they may be.

In the episode, Ted shares his own life transition and offers some thoughts as to how we can find our way through the storm and find calmer waters.

Listen to this podcast episode now:

I’ve taken a break from my podcast for the past couple of weeks.

My two kids have moved out of the house and are living at their respective colleges.

During that process, which went smoothly for the most part, I told myself that there was too much going on to do a podcast. But the truth is, now what I look back, I was dealing with the transition from having two children at home to having none.

For the past 20 years my wife and I have been raising kids. And now, it feels like that’s done. Their bedrooms are empty, and the house is a lot more quiet (and tidy.)

We will continue to support our children but something has changed.

It’s a good change, right?  Still, it’s a big transition for my wife and me.

The last time I did a podcast on life transitions was in January 2024. At that time, I had just turned 64, my oldest child was driving and commuting to the local community college. The other own was still in high school.

One thing that you can always count on is that life will change.

I think that the life transitions that we experience as younger people are easier. They’re exciting and we welcome them.

Going from grade school to high school. Learning how to ride a bike. Learning how to drive, having the first experience with love, getting a job, graduating from high school. We’re a lot more resilient, more hopeful, more positive.

I can’t help but feel that the older we get, the harder it is to deal with the changes that come with growing older.

The known, the familiar, the comfortable: our minds like these things, that’s how we’re wired. What is new and unknown is scary and uncomfortable for our minds.

Everything about us does not want to change.

Yet, we continue to seek change. Although not as exciting and not as easy as when we were younger, we still seek to grow, we seek to improve our life circumstances, make more money, become happier, have better habits and better relationships. We want and we need a certain level of change.

But, as you know, change will happen to us whether we want it or not.

For example, the four Ds: death, divorce, disease, debt.

The loss of a job, the loss of friends for whatever reason, the loss of beloved pets. The ending of a relationship, the loss of our youth. These are changes we don’t want, we don’t seek.

We don’t seek old age. We don’t seek marital strife, separation and divorce. We certainly don’t want to lose those that we love, much less watch them lose their physical and mental capabilities.

Even people who look forward to retirement often find they are unprepared for this transition.

These are the rough waters of life’s transitions. How do we navigate these waters?

Well, to continue the nautical metaphor, if you were a sailor, you would expect rough waters. Hopefully, you will be skilled enough to sail through them, trusting that you will eventually find calmer waters.

Nobody wants to think about the inevitability of things happening that we don’t want. And I don’t think we really need to, a whole lot. What we can do though, is quietly, come to a full and complete acceptance that things will change. All things must pass. Everything must change. Life itself is transitory. We don’t have to like it; we just need to see it as an essential fact of life.

Learning to let go of how it used to be is so hard sometimes. It really is a process, just as grieving is a process.

If we work on being resilient though, there may be an opportunity for growth.  What else can we do but believe that we are capable of rolling with the changes?

I like things to stay the same. I don’t like change. I drag my feet through change. I get annoyed. I get angry. I get indignant, like why do I have to do this?

When my wife and I were looking to buy a house, I had to pulled kicking and screaming through the process.

Eventually, I had to acknowledge my feelings. I was afraid. I didn’t know what it was going to look like. I didn’t know if I could handle a mortgage. But I allowed myself to move forward with courage.

Hopefully we can come to acceptance. We realize we must allow, and if possible, embrace change.

We can practice being better with change. That’s the opportunity.

And that my friends, is how we cultivate wisdom. It’s never too late to become wise. To see what IS, not how you think it should be. Not how you would like it to be.

Seek to be free from your own ego when you can, and you’ll get better at it, but man, it ain’t easy.

I always say that we think we live life but most of the time, life lives us.

During those difficult life transitions, when it seems that life is having its way with us, we need to take care of ourselves in every way:

  • Eating, sleeping, and taking time to ourselves.
  • Asking for help if necessary
  • Talking to someone.
  • Building a strong support system.
  • Being flexible and adaptable.
  • Being patient with yourself. Give yourself time to adjust to the new reality.
  • Avoiding unhealthy comping mechanisms, like drinking etc.
  • Write or document your journey. Share it with someone.
  • Join a group.

Step back, be present, see the patterns of life. Get grounded in the reality of being human.

To be able to witness the change of the seasons, the growth of your kids, and your own growth is a privilege.

I would suggest that it’s also a privilege to be fully in the flow of life and to be able to say goodbye to those things that have brought you joy, comfort and opportunity. And it can be a privilege to say goodbye to those we have loved and cherished.

My favorite quote is by John A. Shedd, who said “A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.

Trust that we are built for these life transitions. It’s in our DNA. Throughout history we humans have developed traditions, rituals and beliefs to navigate these changes.

We are designed to travel on this journey and to be able to courageously greet the rough waters of change and know that we have what it takes to get to the place once again where the water is calm, where we can rest, and have peace.

For a while.

Remember, you can listen to this podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or Soundcloud or TedinYourHead.com. You can also watch this podcast on YouTube.

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As a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Ted supports those pursuing a powerful path of personal transformation. If you are encountering challenges on your journey to who you know you can be, request a complimentary consultation. Go to https://Tedmoreno.com/contact and he’ll get back to you in 48 hours to schedule your consultation and schedule your first hypnotherapy session.