Major life transitions are frequent and usually difficult. This week, Lisa and Brad explore life transitions and discuss ways to more effectively navigate them, maintaining more equanimity and acceptance.
As we traverse the ever-shifting landscape of our lives, each transition carves into our identity like water shapes the earth. Today, we share a raw and intimate conversation about wrestling with the loss of youth and the dawning of older age, a topic that deeply resonates with many. We peel back the layers of anxiety and identity crisis that accompany these life chapters, and offer a space to grieve the past while embracing the future. Whether it's the decline of physical prowess or the appearance of new health challenges, we confront the real emotions tied to these changes and the delicate art of redefining who we are.
In our latest episode, we don't just recount stories; we immerse ourselves in the experience of them. Join us for a candid exploration of confronting physical limitations during a transformative yoga retreat, where we face our vulnerabilities head-on. It's a testament to the power of living in the present, whether it means savoring victories or sitting with discomfort. We unpack the notion that it's not only acceptable but necessary to acknowledge when life's rough tides knock us off course. If you've ever felt adrift amidst the ebbs and flows of life's transitions, let this discussion be your beacon, lighting the path toward self-compassion and a renewed sense of self.
Major life transitions are frequent and usually difficult. This week, Lisa and Brad explore life transitions and discuss ways to more effectively navigate them, maintaining more equanimity and acceptance.
As we traverse the ever-shifting landscape of our lives, each transition carves into our identity like water shapes the earth. Today, we share a raw and intimate conversation about wrestling with the loss of youth and the dawning of older age, a topic that deeply resonates with many. We peel back the layers of anxiety and identity crisis that accompany these life chapters, and offer a space to grieve the past while embracing the future. Whether it's the decline of physical prowess or the appearance of new health challenges, we confront the real emotions tied to these changes and the delicate art of redefining who we are.
In our latest episode, we don't just recount stories; we immerse ourselves in the experience of them. Join us for a candid exploration of confronting physical limitations during a transformative yoga retreat, where we face our vulnerabilities head-on. It's a testament to the power of living in the present, whether it means savoring victories or sitting with discomfort. We unpack the notion that it's not only acceptable but necessary to acknowledge when life's rough tides knock us off course. If you've ever felt adrift amidst the ebbs and flows of life's transitions, let this discussion be your beacon, lighting the path toward self-compassion and a renewed sense of self.
Hello and welcome to Just One Thing. I'm Brad Stearns, here with Lisa Stearns, and we're your hosts on this weekly exploration of simple ways to enhance your relationships, improve your health, manage your stress and just be happier. Now settle in while we discuss Just One Thing. Good morning, hello, good day, hello. Welcome to the next episode of Just.
Speaker 2:
One Thing.
Speaker 1:
Just One Thing is the podcast of Mindful Living Today. You can find us on Facebook at the Mindful Couple. We have a great Facebook group at Mindful Living Today with Lisa and Brad. We're also on Instagram and before I go on, I just want to remind you if you like the podcast, please subscribe. It just makes us more appealing to other folks and it might widen our audience if you think we have things that are worthwhile sharing with others. With that said, today's episode is entitled Transitions Are Hard, okay, and I'm going to say sometimes even very hard, and we'll expand on that a little bit. And what got me thinking about transitions was I think both of us are just sort of going through the life transition of going from youthfulness to old ageing, the ageing process, and there are a lot of things that are difficult about that, but it got us to thinking and talking that most of the transitions in life have difficulties anxiety challenges Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
And that's going from elementary school to middle school, or going from college to jobs, or and I almost interrupted you, I can see you, that's okay, I can see you just hanging there, but they're all parent to not parent or whatever the case may be, go ahead.
Speaker 2:
Loss.
Speaker 1:
Loss is a huge transition.
Speaker 2:
I think transition. There is such a great, tremendous amount of loss that I think you're not prepared for you just don't see it coming to me.
Speaker 1:
Well, yeah, I'll just start going, jumping right into it. I mean, there's the anxiety of not knowing what's coming.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
There are just so many unanswered questions. When you go through a major life transition, whether it's being single to married or vice versa, but, as you said, as you go from one stage of life or one stage of being to another, you're losing a significant percentage of the things that were before. Something before, right Before.
Speaker 2:
And the other thing to me is and this is kind of how we got on this topic, because this has happened for both of us is it's that loss of ego. It's that loss of not ego as in I'm so great ego as in identity You're who I am and what I am, and how I define myself, how I navigate life through that lens that becomes challenged, and when that is challenged, you're in this nebulous place of who am I Exactly?
Speaker 1:
It's a no man's land Right. And what do I believe in? And what sort of floats my boat and drives my life right day to day? What am I striving for, what am I getting up for, etc.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and both of us have experienced this through athletic incapacity for lack of a better yeah, I mean loss of loss of athletic ability capabilities, capabilities yes, and you know mine, through my concussion, about seven or eight years ago and, and our future had been planned that we would retire to a snow community so that we could snowboard, and at that point I, you know, I, was not able to snowboard anymore and and through illness, my own illness, just to be well, even you made that transition for you well.
Speaker 1:
And now you're a business coach, you're running a major women's networking group, and then, with COVID and additional illness, that huge transition.
Speaker 2:
No, you can't do that. You got to go through another transition and redefine yourself all over again. Right and loss, just just devastating loss well, I was even thinking about myself.
Speaker 1:
You know I, even though I was a very good student, I kind of identified myself as a as I'll use the term broadly a jock right in high school. And then I went into college and I wasn't really participating in sports anymore.
Speaker 2:
I just felt unanchored right, you know, for a long time like how do I define myself?
Speaker 1:
how do I structure my day? What am I working towards?
Speaker 2:
who am I if I'm not an athlete you?
Speaker 1:
know, and you know, for four years, the first four years of college. I say the first four years. You know I'm switching majors, like every semester, because I don't know what I want to do, I don't know what I like. You know it was a difficult transition really hard, really hard and I, you know, and we're talking, you know, as we started on aging, but it's, you know, any transition you make where you have an identity that shifts through that life, life.
Speaker 2:
You know life change process and many times it shifts without your expectation. You know that you don't see it coming.
Speaker 2:
Or if something happens that just alters whether it's an accident, whether it's a change of financial capabilities, whatever it is it to me it catches you off guard that you're you didn't see it coming oh sure and I think it really is very, as you said, it's ungrounding, it's very life-shattering and I think I feel as though people do not recognize that that's something that needs to be acknowledged and, in many cases, mourned like a death of a loved one.
Speaker 1:
I like that. You took the term mourned and death because I was thinking a lot of the. The negative emotion you might feel during a life-threat transition is actually grief, exactly. We've talked a little bit about that before. But you aren't losing a lot as you step.
Speaker 2:
You know there might be excitement, expectation right, you're looking for the thing that's coming isn't great but you're also.
Speaker 1:
You know you're losing a bunch of stuff and that can be very unsettling because you think like why am I not feeling like happy and excited all the time? Why am I feeling sad and right and unanchored.
Speaker 2:
I like, I like that term right, right, yeah, and I think it's important to recognize that in that transition, however small or large that transition is, I think it's important to pause and recognize this is a life-altering event. It is challenged the very core of who you are. And in yogic study, which you know, some people are, some people aren't involved in yoga, but in yoga, the whole, the whole purpose of yogic study is to let go of the self, to let go of that identity, because in having that identity there is, there is this challenge to your sense of who am I and this need to hold on to. I'm an athlete, I'm a scholar, I'm a pretty whatever it is.
Speaker 1:
I am not as deeply immersed in yogic knowledge as you are, but I know my interpretation of it is there's a self that's deeper right, and all of these labels that we put on each other exactly and on ourselves and it's, you know, it's the grounding yourself in that.
Speaker 1:
Who am I underneath it? All right, and building on that and embracing that? That allows you to make these life transitions a little more easily. That's not to say you're not going to feel the right, you're not going to feel unanchored, but you know, at my core I'm stable and I will find new things to identify with myself, new purpose, new things to fuel my day right, exactly, yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:
I think it's. It's in that that we find a lessening of the struggle, a lessening of the, the pain, a lessening of the, because if we're not fighting it, if we're not trying to hold on to something, we can't be right.
Speaker 1:
well, and that's not to say that you don't find things of this world, if you will, that are worth pursuing oh, absolutely, and that you're striving for and that are new goals, et cetera. There's a real you underneath there. That sort of should be what you rest yourself upon.
Speaker 2:
Right, Well, I think of it and a lot of times it's described I think Rumi actually describes this as a coming home.
Speaker 1:
Rumi is the Persian poet.
Speaker 2:
Yes, you know the coming home. Okay, and that coming home is that basic, essential self of this. Is just me, without all the labels, without all the fluff, without all the accoutrements, so to speak.
Speaker 1:
So interestingly, you say that. So that sounds very esoteric, kind of woo-woo to me. All of this transcendent self that's underlying everything. How do aside from spending years doing yogic meditation, with yoga, whatever how do you embrace some of that more quickly? What are some things that you can do to help you with some of these transitions? I mean, we've all go through them and I think more or less all of us figure out a way to try to get through them more easily. But I still see people really struggling with some of these life changes that everybody experiences, right, and I'm mindful of a, I don't know who was quoted, the same, but nothing is as unchanging as change, right.
Speaker 2:
Right the one.
Speaker 1:
thing that's sure is change Right. Change will be inevitable, it's constant.
Speaker 2:
You know, I would like to say, in some ways, this is a superpower of mine, so I don't know that I'm the right person to ask, because I just know I had struggled a lot when I went on my yoga teacher training Okay, I was the first two days I was devastated because I was not the athletic me I had Well, and I'm thinking, you're thinking of the physical part of yoga and the asanas and all that kind of stuff Right, I could not do.
Speaker 2:
I just could not. I was physically incapable because of my health situation. I was physically incapable of even doing gentle yoga and it really just punched me in the gut. I just it totally unbalanced me and I don't know, had I not been in such a I'm going to use the word sterile a sterile environment where I wasn't at home.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Speaker 2:
I was only there. It was an immersive yoga, so we were doing yoga 10 hours a day, and when I wasn't doing yoga, I was meditating, and so it was it was. It was easier because I didn't have to deal with life, the rest of life at the same time, but I do.
Speaker 2:
It was a profound moment where I I very early on when I recognized that this was traumatic for me and I was devastated and I just couldn't stop crying. I cried for two days. While I'm going through this class, I'm just sobbing. I used to hold boxes and shoes, but but it was like in the midway through the second day I had this realization where, okay, I can spend this is.
Speaker 2:
This, for me, was a once in a lifetime experience. It was 10 days of me in a beautiful setting, doing yoga and learning something and being in my body and being with me and other people with a like mind, and I recognized that well, I could spend the next remaining nine days in this misery of mourning everything that I was losing, the fact that I couldn't participate. I could just be groveling in that sense of loss, or I could get the most out of that experience that I could, even though I was in this different place. It wasn't easy, it was a profound experience. It was not an easy experience. I didn't suddenly feel, oh great, I'll just do yoga this way without being physical, but there was a definite recognition that in this moment of despair and loss and whatever I have a choice of how I move forward.
Speaker 1:
Well, I like that, I like the choice and I like that you use the word moment, because I know, as you know, I am really bad at transitions.
Speaker 2:
It's hard.
Speaker 1:
I'm fearful of transitions. I avoid transitions because I know the anxiety that I'm going to feel when I tend to avoid those things. But I think what you said the moment, if I can do something to keep myself in the moment and not dwell upon the grief of the loss of what's past, nor focus on the anxiety of what's coming up and I don't know if I can just take.
Speaker 1:
I focus on this step, I focus on that step. What am I feeling in the moment? Defining something that I'm doing this minute, this hour, this day, and staying focused on that without again looking forward or back. I think that helps me with the transition.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
As I'm focused on, step by step. And what does that feel like? All of a sudden, over time, the new reality, the new identity emerges from that. You know, I might not even be conscious of what is, what is the construction of that, but then, all of a sudden, at some point, I'm like oh, I'm in this new place, I'm in this new job, I'm in this new stage of life and I'm okay with it, okay, right. But I have to come back and focus on the moment by moment things that I'm doing.
Speaker 2:
try to stay as much as I can focused on that, and that helps me a lot go through these things Right, right, Well, and I think all of us in this moment, we are always fine.
Speaker 1:
Unless you're hanging from a rope with a fire under you or something like that. Right?
Speaker 2:
right, you know. Yeah, I mean nine and three-quarter times out of 10 times.
Speaker 1:
If you said how am I right now? How am I?
Speaker 2:
right in the second. Yes, I'm uncomfortable. Yes, things are sad. Yes, but in this moment I am okay. I'm fed, I'm clothed, I'm housed, I'm warm, I'm whatever it is. All those essentials are taken care of.
Speaker 1:
And all those things may be iffy in the future, but right now, this moment, right right in this moment, right right.
Speaker 2:
I'm not standing on the edge of a cliff that's crumbling, even though what I'm experiencing bigger, feels like that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and I think I've been fortunate through most of my life that I've always been forward-looking.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
Even though I try to avoid big transitions. But I don't tend to dwell on the grief or the loss of the past. Right, but I find, as I'm advancing in years, sometimes that's becoming a little more tender and intense. Right and hard to deal with you have a hard time dealing with nostalgia. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
That's your past place of challenge.
Speaker 1:
And so and I think I bring myself back to the present and I think that helps quite a bit, right, right, but I think again just to sort of reiterate, as we're sort of stepping through this, there is a lot of grief related to the loss of what was before the transition, right, and there's a lot of anxiety and angst related to the unknown of what is to come as you go through these transitions. Well, and again, to repeat, these transitions are constant throughout the course of our life.
Speaker 2:
Right right.
Speaker 1:
Whether it's a job, a new child, it's an illness, there are transitions we go through constantly.
Speaker 2:
And I know in America I don't know what it's like in other countries and I know we have listeners in other countries, I'm guessing from the British shows you watch the Brits are pretty much the same. You know, when we get in these places we have been raised to say we'll just get over it, just move forward, just put a good face on it, just toughen up whatever. And I think it's really really important to acknowledge this is hard, what I'm going through is hard, and sit with those feelings of this is hard. Not wallowing in it, yeah right, but just acknowledging you know what and it's okay to say this is hard.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and you can soldier forth, right, but if you stuff down the feeling, I think, ultimately that leads into dysfunction.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
And it leads to more emotional distress and that can actually manifest itself into physical illness, mental illness, all kinds of things. Right, right.
Speaker 2:
So I think it's important, when you're feeling that loss of brought about by transition, to make sure you pause every now and then and say you know what? This is hard, and I'm just going to have a moment where this is hard and I can pick myself up later, but right now, I'm sad and that's my just.
Speaker 1:
one thing is just recognize transitions are hard and recognize that you're feeling grief, you're feeling anxiety and you're in the middle of that Right, and I can't say how do I recognize and deal with all of those emotions? Using the tools that we've talked about.
Speaker 2:
You know, in many of our episodes, yeah, I guess my just one thing is similar in that just can you be in the moment when that feeling is overwhelming, of this transition is so hard? Can you bring it back to a breath? Can you bring it back? To your center, your core, you.
Speaker 1:
Excellent, and just a reminder if you like this and if you like previous episodes, you know, please subscribe, please share us with your friends if you think it's valuable to them, and so until next time. This has been just one thing.
