Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes

by William Bridges

In making this important point, I don’t want to leave the impression that endings never involve an external change. My point is simply that the inner ending is what initiates the transition. You see, change can lead to transition; but transition can also lead to change. People who move to another town and embrace a new way of life are making changes that will put them into transition; that is, change leads to transition. But they may have made that move because they are starting to seek different things from life, because their old habits don’t fit them any more, because inwardly they’ve become new people; that is, transition leads to change. Because of this situation, the “endings” that launch transition usually come either before or after the “endings” that are part of change. I was reminded of this recently when a friend was talking about the breakup of his marriage. “But, you know, it really ended quite a while before she left,” he said. “In fact, it was over months before, but I wasn’t ready to face that fact. It was only when she actually walked out that I could admit it was over.” As I listened to him, I thought back to the day we had met for lunch a couple of weeks after his wife had left. I remembered how devastated he was, how confused.