Transitions

Nancy C. Kehoe RSCJ PhD

The academic year 2021-2022 will be, for the Woodlands community, a year of transition. We will live this coming year in the context of the last 18 months in our country which was a period of profound transition – going from what we all experienced as “normal” into lockdowns, isolation, limitation, loss, and change. What we kept hearing was, “when we get back to normal.”

In considering transitions, it is important to understand what transition means, how it is different from change, and how the Woodlands community can more consciously attend to issues of transition. In this reflection based on the work of William Bridges, I am not going to focus on transition as it relates to COVID but the perspectives I am offering may pertain to that as well.

No matter what changes, the same basic experience is present when one (1) something ends; two (2) there is a period of disease, confusion or distress and three (3) there is a new beginning. The challenge of all this is that in the midst of a change, life goes on and work has to be done.

The importance of thinking about transition is to identify our own reactions in the midst of these changes – especially when we find ourselves angry or upset because “this isn’t the way we have done things here.” That is a sign that you have bumped up against the reality of the transition, yet something has ended. Recognition of our emotions and what they are attached to can become a more constructive reaction to difference.

The difference between change and transition is that change is simply the end of something. The seasons change – summer ends, fall begins, and children change from one grade to another. Feelings accompany change and we may pay attention to them or bury them. However, transitions deal with the inner process of how our minds and emotions work with the change. It is the transition we have control over – how do I want to deal with this new situation? This new person? How can I recognize my sadness at the loss of what was and still be open to the new? How can I name and own my feelings so they don’t interfere with what I am called to do and be? Change happens, but how am I going to approach it so that it is within my power?

William Bridges succinctly names this process in four stages:

• Identify what has ended • Live in the unknown open to what the new will bring • Trust the process of life – growth • Mark the ending

From the moment of our birth we have been in transition. What can help us as a community at this point in time is for each of us to reflect on some major transitions in our life through William Bridges’ approach to transition. To think of how we lived with them and through them and to learn from them how we can live this year. How we can move forward together as a community, recognizing that each one brings a different set of experiences, and that change affects each person differently.

The Goals and Criteria call us to be a community and keeps us rooted in the conviction that our Mission is made known to the fact that we believe in a God who loves us profoundly and journeys with us and will be with us in this year of vast transition.