Supporting Myself Through Transitions: A gentle Look Inside my Own Process

Humans are transitional beings. We evolve continuously. In fact, adults experience major transitions about 12-20 times in their lifetimes. We don’t just “go through” transitions- we live in them.

The seasons in my life are a never-ending transition of ups and downs. Sometimes everything seems to shift nonstop: working long hours, changing jobs, moving to another country, becoming a stay-at-home mom, going back to working in the education industry while raising a neurodivergent child, and, lately, a homeschool mom transitioning to a full-time life coach.  For a long time, I coped by catastrophizing to create a strategic plan. I tighten my schedule, raise expectations, and cling to what is familiar even when it no longer serves me. This mindset helps me survive. Overthinking made me feel safe. I carried an old belief that I had to do and hold everything alone, that I was responsible for everything in my life and the things around me, and that I felt self-contempt.

After several years of struggling, I finally found the courage to do it differently. It’s neither perfect nor consistent but intentional and compassionately honest.  As a life coach, I have begun to discover how to support myself through transitions. What follows is a gentle look inside my own process.

Here is my simple process.

1. Acknowledging that there is something not familiar. Instead of pushing through toxic success, I pause with grace. Not dramatically, but enough to breathe and notice the heaviness in my chest, the irritability that doesn’t match the moment, or the quiet feeling of helplessness. That tiny acknowledgment, as a human, I can’t know what lies ahead, so embracing the thought that there is always something unfamiliar softens everything.
2. Honoring my humanity within. The things that I cannot control are living truths that I change often, and no matter how I plan, there are always moments in my life when I cannot control them. As I became truly kind to myself, I no longer resist these hard feelings. Letting my ill feelings flow without resistance, as a human, is overwhelming at times, so I chose to set those feelings aside and reflect on the facts. Then, going back to feel what overwhelms me until I can see for myself that it doesn’t bother me anymore. This process was very hard for me in the early stages of discovering how I process transitions, until I came to understand what real self-compassion is.
3. Let growth flow gently without resistance. As I became truly kind to myself, moving forward no longer needs to be rushed. Growth is a process that does not require speed. It was incredibly difficult in the early stages of learning how I process transition, but understanding real self-compassion changes everything. Space and solitude have become essential in my gentle process. I learned how to hold space for my fears of the unknown, of being ashamed, and the fear of rejection. I go walking in the woods to feel grounded, organize my home, and give my mind a physical representation of alignment.  Gentle growth and solitude help me hear myself again.
4. Asking a grounding question. I’ve learned that simple alignment doesn’t mean solving the whole transition at once. I learned to ask myself how to support myself through uncertainty. What would feel supportive of me in the next hour, day, or month?  These questions bring me back into my body, my breath, and my actual life- not an imagined version where I’m supposed to have everything figured out.
5. Letting the transition teach me. Every transition in life that I have faced taught me something about who I’m becoming. Sometimes it shows me where I’ve been carrying too much, shows me my new desire I didn’t have. Sometimes it shows me a part of myself that’s ready to be met with more compassion. I don’t rush the lesson anymore. I let it unfold in its own timing.

If you’re in a transition right now, I hope you know this: You don’t have to navigate it with perfect clarity or rush through it.  Get to meet yourself gently by creating a space to listen to yourself, the parts of you that are trying to help, and return to yourself again with tenderness.

Remember, you don’t have to move through this alone.

With warmth,

Leony Spieker

Simple Life Alignment- Life Coach