The Messy Middle of Transitions

We are in perpetual transition now more than ever.

Pleasant transitions tend to be the ones we can control: changing jobs, starting a new relationship, or reaching a milestone. These are often the transitions we’re excited to post about on LinkedIn and share with the people around us.

Then there are transitions that hold more mixed feelings: birthdays, changing seasons, holidays, and life milestones. Sometimes we may simply be following the “path” we’ve been sold: go to college (if you have the privilege to attend), get a high paying job, then get asked, “When are you getting married?” Once that happens, the next question is naturally, “When are you going to have kids?”

It can be a predictable and often safe way to live. Predictability gives us a sense of control. We believe we know what comes next.

But what happens when you are forced into a transition you didn’t choose?

A layoff. A divorce. The death of a loved one. A relationship ending. An unexpected change in your health, family, or circumstances.

Everything gets messy. You’re caught in the undertow, pulled into something you didn’t expect. The life you once knew is no longer the same, and you may feel shocked, disappointed, betrayed, angry, afraid, or simply lost.

Transitions can hold many emotions at once. Learning to name what we are feeling is important because our emotions give us information about where we are and what we may need.

The Cycle of Emotions illustrates some of the emotional movement we may experience during a transition. Rather than moving neatly from one feeling to another, we may move between anger, sadness, fear, uncertainty, calm, joy, and everything in between.

I lived this firsthand when my marriage ended.

I hit rock bottom. I remember commuting to work and crying from my house all the way to the parking lot, holding it together to get through the day, and then crying all the way back home.

I was a mess, to say the least.

During this period of my life, there was an unraveling of everything I knew to be true about myself and about life. I was deep in the cycle. I moved from rage, loss, and grief to calm, and eventually all the way back to joy.

It was the first time in my life that I stopped suppressing. In order to survive, I had to feel everything fully. No more holding back.

I experienced an expansion after this painful transition. I was no longer the people pleasing, put everyone ahead of myself, “good daughter” I used to be.

I learned set clear boundaries with my family. I taught my mom how to speak to me. I chose a career that fed me, no longer chasing company names or titles, but instead paying attention to what truly filled my cup.

I no longer had to perform to fit in.

I belonged to myself.

None of this would have happened if I hadn’t allowed myself to experience what I was feeling deeply and fully. The time and space I gave myself created clarity, gave me a new experience of life, and shifted the trajectory of my life.

Transition is rarely linear. We may move forward, backward, or sideways through our emotions. The purpose of this model is not to prescribe how we should move through change, but to help us recognize and name what we are experiencing.

When we can do that, we have an opportunity to ground back into ourselves, make meaning of what is happening, and begin to choose what comes next.

The word transition comes from the Latin transire, meaning “to go across” or “to cross over.”

Perhaps that is what transition asks of us: not to rush past the messy middle, but to cross through it, feeling what needs to be felt, until we are ready to choose what comes next.

The accompanying emotion model draws from Robert Plutchik’s psychoevolutionary theory of emotion, which describes relationships among emotions rather than treating them as isolated states.