A New Year, a New Decade, a New Blog! Welcome and Happy New Year!
I invite you to join the discussion. The goal is that together we create a dialogue where we challenge ourselves and each other to deeper self awareness. Our curiosity about self, our connection with each other and the world can propel us into living a larger life — one filled with a self knowledge which manifests in outreach to those around us. If you have an idea for a topic you would like to see discussed, please suggest it.
Can Transition Lead to Transformation?
“When one door closes, another door opens. Yeah, but it is hell in the hallway.”
Life is filled with change. Change creates transition. Inherent in all transitions is a temporary loss of our comfort zone as we take a risk to move forward. We enter a period of adjustment. This is the “hallway.”
Some transitions are welcome ones, like the birth of a child, a new job, getting married, buying a new house. Even as we quiver with excitement and anticipation, we quake with self doubt. Did we make the right decision or a HUGE mistake? Other transitions are thrust upon us. These un-chosen events-illness, death, divorce, or loss of employment — not only rock our world, they terrify us, devastate us and bring us to our knees.
The hallway of transition is where we confront our anxiety, fear, pain, strength. We may also question our belief system. Everything seems fragile and unsteady. We are not sure what or whom to trust. But it is also where lessons and choices exist. When we come through the other side, we are often amazed at the new skills and wisdom we have acquired. Maybe we are more grateful and content with our lives.
Can we embrace transition? Can we replace fear with empowerment and intention? Can we move through the hallway making mindful choices? For it is in this period of transition that we can experience the most profound personal growth.
How do we utilize transition to bring us to transformation?
While this is the time of year many rush to make resolutions for change, statistics indicate that the majority of those resolutions dissolve in a matter of a few weeks. We may be left feeling frustrated and disappointed in ourselves. Perhaps, another way to look forward is to take a glance back.
Today we begin a New Year and a New Decade. Consider this, “What hallways did you go through in the 2009? The last ten years?” What helped you get through them and what lessons did you learn from the experience that you bring with you into the New Year?
I LOVE your new blog! Your writing is always an inspiration to me! So many hallways, so many wonderful scary times of growth and change. And here we are, another decade behind us, another new beginning. Thank you so much for all you do!
Great idea to use a blog to get your writing to more people. I really like the look of the new website! Great job abd great way to greet the New Year!
I tend to fashion my life aster the Chinese philosophy of Taoism – which teaches us acceptance. Once we chose to make a change, or once a change is thrust upon us, we need continue on our path with the knowledge that all will be well. Perhaps a detour will be required, but wihtout entering that hallway, there can be no forward movememt.
Donna – you are so very insightful – I look forward to reading more of your words and you help all of us enter our hallways of change and transition.
To live a complete life we must constantly be pusing our comfort zones. We will not have change if we stay in the same place. I have learned this is hard to do but when you do take the risk and leap out of the zone I have never been sorry. My goal for the new year is to make more leaps and enjoy what I find on the other side of the fence.
Happy New Year Cousin! As always your well written words are such an inspiration to me, not only personally, but also in my grief support work. Those going through the grief process are involved in one of life’s hardest times of transition. Yet at the end of that road, be it long or short, can be great joy. For transition can bring us to a place where new possibilities abound; where anything is possible!
Donna, I wish you great joy and continued success as you transition into the new year.
This site is wonderful, and I look forward to returning to read your future entries. Until then, be well.
First of all, congratulations on your new blog. The site looks terrific.
Love your thought provoking concept to consider: what did the hallways help you to learn about yourself? I’d have to say that the one, long, endless hallway that I continue to walk down has taught me and continues to teach me that I am stronger than I know. As I reflect on that experience that hallway has also taught me that the things that have remained constant for me are: my values, my integrity, and my morals. I never compromised those things in the face of difficulty.
As always thank you for making me think
I used to have a quote on my bulletin board that read:
We must move in the direction of our fears.
This has motivated me to take on challenges, move beyond the fear of the risks and achieve my goals and happiness.
Nice addition to your web site. Looking forward to hearing and sharing with others.
Hey Donna,
(This is the first time I have ever blogged!! How about that??)
Your new website looks terrific. I am sure you have had fun putting it together and I know the blog will generate some healing discussions.
I recently came upon this quote – one that I believe we should all consider as we enter this new year, this new decade:
“We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential.”
CJ Golden
thepath@taogirl.com
As I begin a new year and look back on the past years I will be forever grateful for those that were on the journey with me. I am not longer in Connecticut, having started a new lift in Ohio, but my heart remains in Connecticut. There my life ended and began again. It has been a very difficult journey and one that forever changed my life and who I am. Without the help of people like Donna, my attorneys and my friends I would have never made it through. The aftermath of divorce, during the process and the years after are intense. My foundation was shaken, broken and mended. My soul remained strong. I have learned many lessons. I have embarked on my new life with new found confidence and with periods of “What the hell happened”! But still alive to start to tell my story and start to breathe and smile again….looking forward to the continued journey with life finally looking upward and beyond. Happy New Year to all and never give up!
I recently visited Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s blog, the author of “The Invitation” a poem Donna asked us to read and reflect upon before one of her fabulous retreats. Oriah too talks of changes, especially at the end of one year and the beginning of the next, a time of “transition”. She calls it the “liminal” time from the latin limen meaning threshold. Oriah proffers that instead of looking back and assessing the past or planning our future, we should sit with the unpredictability of the liminal time, the time in-between. We are a society of women in particular, I think, who need to know where we’ve been and where we’re going. We often use those liminal times to busy ourselves with the things that will help us “control” our lives. What would it be like instead for us to take advantage of these in-between times in our lives (e.g.between dusk and nightfall) to just be present, breathe, dream, imagine and not plan or anticipate what someone might ask of us? Imagine the possibilities of our creativity. Imagine the parts of us that would awaken and come alive if we were to shake off the anxiety of not knowing what was going to happen next. Embrace the in-between, liminal times with all their possibilities, unpredictability and promise.
Thank you Dawn. This speaks to the need we have to just “be” rather than always “do”. What a challenge for us! When we look to distract others with “busyness” we often miss the lessons and gifts that present themselves in times of turmoil and unsteadiness.