In transition

Weird. Surreal. Dislocated.

In less than two weeks our world has radically changed and that has a psychological impact. It's called transition. The point of this post is simply that it's worth labeling what we're experiencing and being aware of some of the common dynamics of transition. 

In the literature on organisational change management it's William Bridges who is the most cited and it's worth Googling his three-stage transition model. But this idea of transition has also been taken up and developed by those involved in cross-cultural mission (e.g. David Pollock, Third Culture Kids) and the model below is as I've been taught it by Duncan Olumbe of Mission Together Africa.

Before getting into that it's worth recognising that there is a wide variety of ways in which people's situations have been affected by Covid-19, including (but not limited to):

• Some at home and unable to work
• Some at home and trying to continue work or study
• Some working in their normal workplace but with new challenges and stresses

And it's also worth recognising that this transition is (for many of us) quite different from a lot of life transitions:

• Lack of preparation time. The speed of the ramping up of restrictions and the speed of change in our lives has been quite extreme. A lot of major life transitions (marriage, emigration, retirement) are ordinarily accompanied by a fairly long run up - several months or years of practical and psychological preparation time. But the Covid-19 change has been rapid - much more like a sudden redundancy or an unexpected bereavement - and so much more traumatic.
• Lack of certainty. With most transitions there are uncertain elements. In fact uncertainty is a defining feature of the middle stages. But there is usually an overall certainty - we are getting married, I am moving, someone has died. But the Covid-19 situation is evolving by the day, the goal posts keep changing so that it is not so much one transition as a series of transitions in rapid succession. As we seek to adjust to the new normal we are aware that the new normal might change tomorrow.
• Lack of geographical transition. Many transitions involve movement. We move house. We move country. We move workplace. We move floors within a company. Think of the big transitions in the Old Testament - there is often geographical movement. And that movement helps us to psychologically process the leaving and transition and entering. But for many of us in Covid-19 lockdown, we get up in the same bed and look out the same window and everything looks much the same as normal. Hence the feelings of unreality. Everything has changed but nothing has changed. It is a little like (though not comparable in magnitude to) a bereavement. 
• Lack of work transition. Often life transitions involve a major shift in our work life. And clearly for many that has been the case in this season. Some have sadly been made redundant. Others have come out of retirement to rejoin the NHS. But many still have the same job and over half of those are still attempting to do that job - either outside the home or more commonly in the home.

We're in transition. It might be a weird transition - so not all of the below will apply. But it is a transition. So what is the transition cycle? The following is particularly in reference to work and cross-cultural transition but a lot applies generally. 

• Involvement is characterized by a sense of belonging, clear role and identity. You know what you’re doing. You have established routines and clear roles and responsibilities. You are fully embedded in a network of relationships where everyone else knows who you are and what you are able to do. Psychologically you are secure, safe, confident (as much as you ever are), focused on the present.
• Leaving. On receiving news that you are to move on to something new, you consciously and unconsciously start to leave your present state. There is a mental preparation towards the actual leaving – disengagement, withdrawal, a more critical stance. If others around you are not going with you then they also start to prepare for you moving on – you start to be excluded from the inner circle discussions. With adequate planning time this is normally the time to hand over responsibilities, say goodbyes, reconcile, celebrate, and prepare for what next. However, it is also a time of denial, especially if the transition was not anticipated, and there may well be feelings of rejection, resentment, guilt, grief. Conflict, sleep disturbance and yo-yo emotions are common. Mental focus is largely on the future and there may be idealized expectations of what is next or, at the other extreme, dread.
• Transition. The actual Transition is a very draining and chaotic time. There is often a sense of emptiness and confusion, chaos and lack of structure. The sense of loss of the former stability is real. As someone has described it, you are jumping on the high trapeze – you’ve let go of one bar but you haven’t grasped the other swinging bar – you’re in mid-air – and that is a very vulnerable, scary moment. In transition you have lost your clear identity that came from your position in the previous team/work/place. You are status-less. It can be a very isolated time where no one seems to understand you. Psychological experience: anxiety, fear, panic, grief, emotional instability, nightmares, loss of confidence. 
• Entry. Gradually you will begin to Enter into the new team/place/culture/situation. At first you are clueless – reduced to the humbling state of a child who doesn’t know how to do anything, how to relate to people, how to be. As you start to get stuck in you will make a lot of mistakes. You think you understand something, become overconfident and then be rudely corrected and realise you don’t understand after all. This can lead to withdrawal – but you must keep initiating relationships and pushing yourself outward and towards people. Socially, your status in the new group/team/society is marginal. You are not in any way an insider yet or even fully accepted. People don’t know you or what you can do so they may not trust you with things you were well able to do before. Psychologically you feel vulnerable, maybe excited, maybe depressed. Routines have not settled yet and sleep or eating problems are common in this stage. 
• Re-engagement. Thankfully, transition usually reaches the stage of Re-engagement. Relationships build and eventually you start to get back to that state of equilibrium where once again you have that sense of belonging, clear identity and role and responsibilities where socially you are known and accepted and trusted and psychologically you are settled and secure. However there will still be surprises at this stage where you have set backs and step changes forward in your understanding of the new culture/environment. 

Why it's helpful to think about transition:

• Self-awareness. It's good to simply be aware of what we're going through. Why do I feel so tired? Why am I getting so irritable with people? Why am I experiencing a major loss of confidence in things that I was able to do a couple of weeks ago? We don't want to excuse sin or deny there are lots of other factors involved. But it can be helpful at least to acknowledge the transition. 
• Sensitivity to others. It helps us to help others through the transition. Listening. Empathy. Keeping in close contact. Providing support. Expectation management. Curating the bewildering avalanche of information and voices. Keep pointing people to their Father and his Son and the certainty of his past work and future work (aware that praying and Bible reading will be more important though more difficult than ever).  
• Time to process. While for many it will not be at all possible to take a break at this point - we just need to plough on for now, work hard on new processes and systems and resources, look out for others, praying for God's sustaining grace in these exceptional times - we will need a break at some point. We are human and humans need time to process change. In Old Testament times it looks like the cessation of activity for mourning a close relative or a key figure in the society (which is a huge transition) took seven, 30 or even 70 days. We will need to take a break at some point and rest physically and emotionally and take time to process in the old ways of tears, silence, journals, sleep, walking, talking to one another, talking to our Father.