How Therapy Can Help You to Feel Grounded During Life’s Transitions
Change can bring up a complex set of feelings that has many layers to it. You might feel many complex feelings at the same time when things in life are changing or about to change.
The unknown newness of the path you are walking can feel scary or exciting. It can bring on the things you have always wanted and hoped for or things that feel difficult and challenging. Life transitions can offer an invitation to grow and to consider things that you would like to do differently in this stage of your life.
What are some example of life transitions?
Life transitions are significant moments that can reshape how you see yourself and the world around you. Some examples of life transitions can include:
Beginning or ending a relationship such as divorce, a separation or breakup
A shift in your career such as a salary change, job promotion, job loss or more responsibilities in your job role
Becoming a new parent or having additional children
Becoming a caregiver
Moving to a new city, state, country, place or to a new culture
Navigating illness or healing from illness
Changes in identity
Entering a new stage of adulthood, such as “Midlife crisis”, “Quarter Midlife crisis”, Perimenopause or Menopause or becoming an “Empty nester”
Even when the change is expected, it can still feel overwhelming.
Why Life Transitions Can Feel So Intense
Transitions can feel intense for several reasons such as:
Familiarity and Change
When familiar routines change, it can feel unpredictable and stressful.
Different emotions can be present at the same time
It is possible to feel excited and also scared. Sad and also hopeful. Confident and also unsure. Mixed emotions are common especially with change.
Your identity is shifting
You may be tuning in to different parts of yourself and trying to change old habits or thought patterns.
Your relationships may be adjusting
Big changes can shift who you lean on, who is available to support you and how supported you feel.
You remember old challenges
Charged memories or emotions from the past can feel more present when things are changing in your life.
How Life Transition Therapy San Francisco Can Help You Step Into a Stronger Version of Yourself
Life transitions therapy can be a powerful place to steady yourself, not because someone gives you the answers, but because you can reconnect with the wisdom you already carry inside. Counseling can offer a space to understand your experience and support you to build the inner strength needed to move through this chapter in your life with intention and clarity.
You can honor what is ending
Every beginning contains an ending. Giving yourself space to feel the loss can allow you to enter the next chapter with more peace. It also gives you an opportunity to have a more integrated experience.
You can build grounding routines that center you
Simple practices, when used consistently, can become powerful anchors. Therapy can help you find the ones that feel authentic to you.
You can strengthen the support around you
You can learn what relationships support your healing and what boundaries help you thrive. Therapy does not change the transition itself. It can strengthen the person moving through it.
You can gain a clearer view of your story
Together, you and your therapist explore what this transition means for you. You can discover what is, what has been, what you would like to shift and what you are ready to move toward.
You can learn skills to support your emotional resilience
Therapy can offer you insights and tools to help you calm your anxiety, softening self doubt, and finding steadiness even when things feel uncertain.
You can reconnect with your identity
Transitions can bring up many parts of yourself. Your values, dreams, vulnerabilities, questions, worries, hopes are among some of the parts that may come up. Therapy can support you to explore these rich pieces.
Shohreh Schmuecker, LMFT- Life Transitions Therapy, San Francisco Bay Area
Ready to move through this transition with support? Start your Life Transition Therapy journey today. If you’re looking for Life Transition Counseling in San Francisco, the San Francisco Bay Area, or throughout California, Shohreh Schmuecker, LMFT offers online therapy for those that would like therapeutic support their life changes.