The Phases of Transition: The End is Just the Beginning
Bertita Graebner, Ph.D: Author, Conversationalist, Listener
Voices 2015 - www.globaltechwomen,com
Session Length: 1 Hour
Dr. Graebner helps us track down what is set in a verbal culture and, better yet, what underlying assumptions can be galvanized in a change process. She teaches us to listen with our ears and with our imagination until we hear both what is spoken and what, though unspoken, moves people's attitudes, as well as their planning and decision-making. As she herself uses the listening approach, she models for us the way to catalyze change by way of the listening heart.
Author of:
A New Tree of Knowledge: Metaphor in a Christian Community, a reviewed monograph, which is available on Amazon.
Contributor to:
Co-creating Happiness: Stories from Around the World, Dr. Graebner's contribution is found as one of 100 from 43 countries on pages: 86-87, which is available as a Kindle Book on Amazon.
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The Phases of Transition - the End is Just the Beginning
1. When I set off down the road
Adapted from: Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes - written by William Bridges, 2004
Additions & Resonances from Education/Training/Lived-Experiences/Knowledge of Dr. Bertita
Graebner @ Conversations With Bertita
4. And to make an end
is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
Little Gidding, 4th
quartet
Four Quartets, a poem. 1943
T. S. Eliot
We start at the end:
That is where we begin
5. Dis-Engagement Process
CAN ANNOUNCE AS A SUDDEN BURST
IT’S OVER!
or
DAWNING CONSCIOUSNESS
THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’
&
SUMPINS’ GOTTA GIVE
6. Dis-Mantling Process
I see my-self image - fragmented -
spread upon the surface of
my reflecting pool.
Finding inner-schooled dividing-walls
in my-self mirror
Undoing the bits ➣ Editing my-self
A studied falling apart
Trans-Evolution:
Undoing-deconstructing my dignity
7. Dis-Identification Process
KNOWING:
I am no longer there
I am no longer that
I ain’t where I ought to be
and I ain’t what I’m goin to be.
But I ain’t what I was.
Signage: seen in Western USA
8. Dis-Enchantment Process
Even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Love, part 2
The Prophet, a prose-poem book/28 parts. 1923
Kahlil Gibran
Snip ➣ Skive ➣ Shear ➣ Shape
10. TIPS:
I consistently practice
➣ with a listening/reflecting-companion
➣ self-care techniques of choice
➣ meditation: mental & physical
➣ syncing my inner rhythms with external cycles
➣ kindness at all times — to self, to others
11. Thank you —
For your presence
Here
Today
Dr. Bertita Graebner
LinkedIn
Notas del editor
Here is where I cut my ties to the world that gave me my old identity — ties both interpersonal & social.
I take apart the internal structures that were required to maintain my success and hold in place my former world.
I take apart this former identity a piece at a time, piece by piece as each one appears in my present moment for reconsideration.
Practicing the Dis/Engagement Process stops my receiving old signals & cues from my before time.
Practicing the Dis/Mantling Process, on the other hand, stops my applying my ready-made re-actions and retorts.
I adapted and cobbled up these returns to cope and to deal with my then present life and the chaotic moments in it. They come from an archaic & out of date formula acquired and constructed by me over time for living successfully within the realities of that now former world. They served me well there.
So, BRAVO & CONGRATULATIONS TO ME! I SUCCEEDED.
My database of available responses, my old habits, my former behaviors & practices were needed and functioned well before Dis/Engagement appeared on the scene. They held me together.
Left untouched, I remain in a past world, living out of sync.
However, now is not then.
Dis/Mantling, in effect, is a process that allows me to become current with myself/mirror and myself as I re-image into the world I am entering.
Looking at this a bit further, I find my Dis/Mantling process has two parallel and separate processes: — one emotional, & — one cognitive.
Emotionally:
I have lost something. I know it. I have lost perhaps many things as a result of the Dis/Engagement. I know it. Lots of emotions pass through me. I cry a lot. I say many words. I feel many emotions. These are my natural and normal responses to loss. The process does not cause them but allow me to piece by piece take apart and see the now inaccurate image in myself/mirror. All these reactions tumble out onto myself/reflecting pool so that I can now see what was. I can now reflect upon and re-vision the image I find through the Dis/Mantling Process.
I can see clearly & exactly what this particular Dis/Engagement took from me.
To this, I add the parallel process,
Cognitively:
I begin a gradual separation. My way of thinking changes from WE / WE ARE PART OF . . . to no longer thinking so, because — in fact I was not and perhaps never was a part of . . . not at least, in the way I thought. — I begin to think of myself as I / I AM . . .
It is a long slow process. I must learn patience with myself, as it is counter-cultural to allow us the individuality of time needed. While I change over emotionally & cognitively, I must be kind to others still in my world and to myself as I follow through with my transformation.
It is a kind of mini death and it hurts. It deserves my respect and attention.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross writes of the five stages of grief in her book: On Death & Dying. Her name can be Googled and her book purchased for more information on her thought.
This time related and self-referential adage makes clear how difficult it is to estimate accurately — how long.
“It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.”
< Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. by Douglas Hofstadter.
Named after Douglas Hofstadter, this saying acknowledges how hard it is to say how much time is needed to complete any task of substantial complexity, such as the Dis/Mantling Process or any other aspect in the process of Transformation.
Myself/definitions are gone:
My self/reflection is gone.
Myself/role is gone.
Myself/label is gone.
My familiar behaviors benefit me.
The familiar is gone.
It is no laughing matter and can be s source of serious panic.
Dis/Identification is considered to be the inner-side of the Dis/Engagement transition process.
The reason to take time for the Dis/Identification Process is that it serves you in 4 ways:
1. To separate from an old identity/or/a self/mirror that does not help you live effectively and well in your new reality.
2. Dis/Identification makes transition possible.
3. It opens space to try on and create behaviors and psychological self/mirrors that allow for transformation
– To literally re-form your internal ways of thinking & external ways of behaving.
It makes possible self-renewal – aka a new identity suited to a new reality.
4. Dis/Identification opens the mirror to see a new reflection, a new self-image: one that matches the new reality you have entered.
When Dis/Engagement appears in my professional & vocational life, I may find I need a temporary identification — a transitional title & role to assist others in identifying where I fit with them and myself.
I call this Participial Living. Others call it a Participial Identity. In other words, every noun I use to describe myself has — ING. The —ING states the action of the noun and serves as an adjective to my “I am.” During my Transition Process, I may say: I am Lectur-ING (not, I am a Lecturer) or I am Teach-ING (not, I am a Teacher), or I am Writ-ING (not, I am a Writer) or whatever applies in my actual life.
People, like and prefer nouns. They are names. They are labels. They say: YOU ARE –
Nouns add a security to knowing the — Who — it is you are in their scheme of things. There are no ifs or buts about it. You are whatever noun is placed after – I am –
Nouns allow you to keep it short & simple: The KISS approach.
During my passage into myself I can identify myself participially. This permits me a professional name while not yet claiming the profession. I can live in the in between places both professionally and socially. It allows movement and exploration of different social and professional groups. I can sort of leap into the adventure of an identity and take on its mantle. I can try it on and see how I look in my mirror. How well does it suit me? Participial Living gives me a name while allowing my private, personal passage time to see images in myself/mirror until I see my accurate reflection.
The discovery of Dis/Enchantment is: a significant part of my internal & external reality is simply not so. Large or small, what I held to be TRUE I discover is not so. I am let down – what I trusted in let me down. I am betrayed. I can even discover I am not who I thought I was when push came to shove in the crunch of life.
In some tangible, palpable way, my world is no longer real. This LETDOWN is a Wakeup call: It is not so.
This comes to each of us who has had the courage to trust and to believe. People let us down. I let myself down. I have daily ‘disenchantments’ — some larger, some smaller. It is a lifetime recurrent-experience.
As with former old identities, former realities, and former connections — what was must be cleared from thought, thought behaviors, and action behaviors.
There still lingers a sense of the way it should be; the way it ought to be. There remains a sense of rightness that is no longer. That internal image in my minds eye lingers.
That SHOULD holds a ‘standard’ for my manner of thinking &/or my behaviors.
I need to UNLEARN what I knew I knew.
Growth is not necessarily an additive process, a continual MORE! AND! UPWARD & ONWARD! LOSS is counter to our cultural expectations here in America. The expectation is forever MORE. That that is not so, is counted as abnormal or an inversion to the natural order of life.
An end — usually denotes — What’s NEXT! — It does not denote LOSS!
That is a heavy blow.
My SHOULDS hold me in an iron tangle of assumptions and expectations keeping me bound to a world of mine that no longer exists. I must snip way at my beliefs & expectations & assumptions. To shape and form well is not easy. It is difficult to skive, to thin, and shear the edges of my beliefs & assumptions. My reality needs not nurture growth that saps my strength and leaves me misshapen. Some find the first task of transition is that of unlearning.
So, in order to not simply switch from one enchantment to another enchantment, I accept my disenchantment. I explore it. I find its edges. I see dis/enchantment, as realignment with what is current in my life. I transition to a reality that actually corresponds.
Disenchantment signals to me — I see it is not so. I am ready now to see clearly. I am ready to scrutinize my depths of assumptions. I am ready to see me in my current life: to know what is in every moment in life.
It is a process and time of discovery.
Disillusioned: I reject the current lot of enchantments, switch to others to fill my inner-cast-of-characters, and stay stuck in enchantment.
This choice keeps me in unreality, and often bitter.
Disenchanted: I scan my internal image; I survey it is not; I spot the fit of what is; and I set my sights on my future.