Engaging With Transition
Yes, it’s a new year—but let me back up for a moment.
Over the past several months, I’ve been noticing a shift in my work. I began offering spiritual direction with a clear idea of what it would look like, and lately, it’s been unfolding in ways I didn’t anticipate. As a control type on the Enneagram, this hasn’t been easy. Control feels secure to me especially when that control comes from my own carefully formed ideas.
What I know to be true is this: the growth work my clients are doing needs to be echoed in my own life. I need to be in my own work, too. Whether it’s faith deconstruction, divorce, becoming an empty-nest parent, retirement, career changes, midlife shifts, or any other form of transition; this is the terrain of being human. While my own current transition may not mirror yours, we can share the road and learn from the process together.
In somatic work, there are a few essential qualities that need to be available to us.
First, radical inclusion: learning to include everything that is happening without immediately judging it.
Second, curiosity: we are wired to resist change, yet so much of the work is becoming curious about what might be trying to come alive.
And third, working with overwhelm: big change can be destabilizing, but with the right resources and permission to pause, we don’t have to be consumed by it.
As we enter this new year—and many of us are already in the midst of transition—I find myself asking a few questions. How do we pause and make inclusive space for what is new, uncomfortable, or intuitively present but not yet fully formed? How might we become more curious about what’s unfolding? And how do we discern when to gently allow and when we need to step back and rest?
Sometimes these questions become clearer when we see them reflected in others. Is there someone in your life navigating a transition right now—and how might you walk alongside them? So much of our relational growth involves being truth-tellers, offering honest reflection, objective listening, or simply showing up with care via Tex-Mex. Our relationships need truth, objectivity, and yes—sometimes enchiladas.
Another place of curiosity is our own support team. What are the people who walk with you—therapists, coaches, spiritual directors, healers, bodyworkers, trusted professionals—reflecting back to you? Often no single voice holds the full answer, but together they begin pointing us toward a deeper truth about what is becoming. This, in many ways, is the work of healers: to help us find new ways of belonging as we change.
May you make gentle space for what is changing.
May curiosity lead where certainty cannot.
May you know when to stay present
and when to rest.
And may this season guide you
toward deeper belonging—
within yourself and with others.