Transitions by Dr
Elizabeth McCardell, M. of
Counselling, PhD
Feb 2012
Now is the time of new beginnings, a time of
leaving behind the old and embracing what is as yet unfolding. In this month’s article I want to talk
about transitions, generally, and specifically career transitions.
In Tibetan Buddhism
there is a concept known as the bardo.
Contrary to what is popularly thought the bardo
does not just refer to the period between death and rebirth, but all transitional
states. Life is in a constant state of bardo.
The transitional states are well illustrated in the ancient Tibetan Book of the
Dead, and I could speak of these, but
suffice to say, they are described
as the clinging (or not) of the ego to past identifications. For example,
before, you identified your self by your job as manager of a corporation, but
now, you are retrenched you have to think again. You have to de-identify
yourself according to your old job, and perhaps move to reconsider yourself not
as a worker but as a person. The old identification to a job, and its loss, has
brought heartache, yet still you have to work. How much better it would be to
work at something that shares in the well spring of the uniqueness of yourself.
The German
philosopher, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), has a similar concept to the bardo. He speaks of thrownness: the movement between this moment and the next. Imagine
a ball being thrown between two people: the ball leaving this moment and
arriving at the next moment. The ball does not suddenly arrive at an always
expected destination, but travels the distance between, influenced by perhaps a
juddering wind or uneven air pressure. It arrives, but its course is not
necessarily predictable. Life is
like that. Where we find ourselves may not always look possible from the
launching pad of earlier life. We do have choices though.
Many years ago I met in
the street my old kindergarten teacher. I’d gone to the kindergarten attached
to the University of Western Australia’s Psychology Department (which could
well have influenced the shaping of my current career). This old kindie teacher
was a developmental psychologist and was busily studying us as well as
stimulating our growing minds and bodies. So I met this intriguing old lady in
the street and she asked me what I was doing now. I was in the process of
writing my PhD (on, by the way, philosophy of embodiment in transitional and reciprocal states). She said,
“Interesting… Because I would not have guessed that’s what you would do.” I
wished that I’d asked her what she thought I’d do, but didn’t. She continued, “You know, I could
usually predict what the boys would do in life, but I could never really guess
what the girls would do.” This
little chance conversation sits there in the background of my mind and I wonder
why it is so (or was) that little
girls grow up in more unpredictable ways than little boys. I wonder too,
whether this trend has changed. I suspect it has. It is common now for everyone
to have a variety of careers in the course of a life time. The old ‘one job for life’ thing has
passed away.
So, just as much as it
is true throughout the Western world, many of us in our community here in the
Northern Rivers are transitioning from our old job to a new one, and possibly
shifting into another profession entirely. It is said that most people have
five careers in the course of their life. This means that the kudos associated
with being in a single career strand is not as important these days and there
is a shift from identifying yourself by the work you do to who you are and your
other characteristics and sources of interest (sport, books, the environment, entertainment, meditation
practices, etc). This is a very
healthy trend as it means there is a potential for fewer numbers of people
suffering devastating feelings of bereavement on losing an old job.
Unfortunately the modern reality is that though we all may be working in a
number of jobs across our life time, the loss of a single job carries with it a
many layered guilt trip, embedded in much cultural baggage. All the “shoulds”
(should have done this, should have done that) and ideas of pride and self-esteem
and so on, come bubbling up like some horrible creature from the deep. I know
this stuff well for in my own life, I’ve worked in several careers and felt the
bereavement of losing jobs, the friends associated with them, and the
particular geographies of the work environments. I’ve been a university and
tafe teacher. I’ve been a researcher, editor and writer, and now am primarily a
therapist as well as a career transitional coach: all crisscrossing over with
no single linear pathway. What I have learned in the past 30+ years is to go
with the flow; to not define myself by what work I do and to walk away from
jobs that do not nurture me. The old Protestant work ethic, while beneficial in
some ways, does not always serve the integrity of the organism at all well. For
sure, some work requires just chipping away and getting through it, but here
again is an opportunity to see yourself as a vibrant being in the world, and
not merely a dull chipper.
So what is the best
way to think about moving on from the old job to the new? In the career
transition coaching manifesto that I use as a separate, yet adjunct, part of my
therapeutic practice, we need to identify clearly your existing skills, the
particular interests you have, your personality type, what further education
may be required and who could be contacted to give you a better understanding
of the kind of work you are attracted to.
Like the ball thrown from
this place …… to this, we can organize – to a degree – how the transition might
look. We can prepare ourselves for the next stage, garner a greater awareness
about what is needed to make the transition really work, and enjoy the process
of it. Either that, or be buffeted around like a ping pong ball in the
vicissitudes of disorganized life, all the while feeling incredible anxiety and
pain. I encourage the new.Copyright @ 2013 Dr Elizabeth McCardell
