Is Transition Misery or Magical? It all depends how you look at it!

Womenlines welcomes ANJI HALLEWELL as an Influencer of Positive Mindset on the Womenlines panel. Anji is a Natural Strengths Coach, Trainer, and Founder of Hidden Lava. In her sharing for this month, Anji is talking about how transitions in life can be taken positively-

It’s been almost a year to the day that life as we knew it was turned upside down. It was about 3 pm on a weekday in May, just days before I turned 40. I had just found a viable route to set up business in Singapore and I was excited about what birthday celebrations were in store for me. I returned home from an appointment, to find my husband at home. He was unusually early, so I blurted out the first thing that came into my head which was, “What are you doing here?”. I knew from his face that whatever his response was, it wasn’t going to be good news.

By the time you get into your thirties and forties you have already established your blueprint in life – your job, your family, where you live and holiday etc. For the most part, life is stable and predictable, which creates a sense of knowing and safety. Sure, there are day-to-day stresses that come with it, but the mind doesn’t need to tackle basic needs, like food and shelter. And you can go to bed very night congratulating your inbuilt safety system for doing a good job of keeping you safe!

Yet, there is an adventurous side to you. One that longs for some excitement or for a different way of life. Sure, you may take a break by stepping out of the normal structure whilst you do something which breaks the norm, but you always return and slip back into things. Showing that once again, the safety side of you will always be the dominant driver in life. Isn’t that curious? On one hand, you want to know exactly what is happening and on the other, you long for excitement. However, there are occasions where this choice is making for you, as I found out that afternoon.

Redundancy is such a kick in the teeth for your safety side. It throws it into a frenzy, whilst the adventurous side of you shouts, “game on!”. Suddenly, both sides of you are fully awake and it causes the heightened level of emotional and mental stimulation. It’s like enjoying the thrill of driving a car at full throttle, whilst screaming for your life. By the very nature of opposing forces, this state is not sustainable and equilibrium must eventually restore. For us, we landed in the lease of new energy and excitement towards the possibilities of newly fledged freedom. Whilst everyone else seemed to represent the voice of safety for us, by quizzing us on how we were going to restore things. This infers that there was something to be fixed, but was there anything to fix?

Opposites are found throughout life, day and night, rich and poor, high and low temperature. Does one always have to be good and one bad, or can they just be different? Isn’t it the very existence of labels that we place on things that cause us to focus on the disparity? If we just saw opposites as different states would it make life events easier to deal with?

There are so many transitions that we go through, both big and small. From moving to a new country to children flocking the nest. But no matter what happens in life, the sun will always rise and the fall. Each day bringing something new and the freedom to do with it what you will. They say that the only constant in life is change, so we should strengthen our ability to be comfortable with it. But it is not the change itself that causes the fear to rise, it’s the thought of having to deal with the unknown. For those that have been through big events in life, you will know that the thought of it happening is never as bad as being in it. For when you engage the human spirit it’s unbreakable.

There is so much more to us which goes unutilised. We have infinite strength, courage and wisdom to navigate ourselves through life. So, we shouldn’t fear change or the unknown. We should feel confident that we will follow our integrity, intuition and heart to see us through. With every sunset, there is dusk, the transition from day to night. Its smooth subtle exchange between light and dark is a natural as the air we breathe. The transition is not something to dread, as just like a twilight sky it’s simply magical.

Anji Hallewell

Coach, Trainer & Founder

+65 8408 5042