Transitions (40th Anniversary Edition): Making Sense of Life's Changes

the first phase of transition. The second phase is a time of lostness and emptiness before life resumes an intelligible pattern and direction. The third phase is that of beginning anew.

plans. This loss of motive power and direction is frightening to many individuals and those around them,

It is no wonder that people who have silenced those inner signals find meaningful careers difficult to launch and to maintain, or that when they encounter times of transition, they are so confused and

I will discuss the five aspects of the natural ending experience: disengagement, dismantling, disidentification, disenchantment, and disorientation.

Rule number three: although it is advantageous to understand your own style of endings, some part of you will resist that understanding as though your life depended on it.

2. What is standing backstage, in the wings of my life, waiting to make its entrance? The

the transition always starts with an ending.

We have it backward. Endings are the first, not the last, act of the play.

The thirties can be a time of new or renewed commitment to what Levinson calls “the tribe,” some social grouping that has particular importance for the individual.

third thing to do is important: take things step by step,