Transitions
Who are you when everything else around you is taken away and the only thing left is you?
It’s in the transitions where we discover who we are and learn what we can live with and without. Many of the biggest moments in our lives center around change and mainly those that have come from something external or a situation we did not choose. The hardest part in change that we did not initiate is how to deal with the effects and continue to move forward with a new focus without what has been removed from the previous version of ourselves or life that we knew.
Sometimes this comes in the form of losing a loved one. Other times it is from the heartbreak of separating from another. It could be finding oneself no longer belonging in a career or job or environment, whether by choice or forced exit. Many times on this journey these transitions can either lead us to a dark place where we can stay stuck or offer an opportunity to begin again and discover who you really and what you want to be in your environment going forward. Learning how to cope with change and focus on creating a new perspective based on what you do have and want can be one of the greatest gifts this life gives us if we have courage and are open to the possibilities.
This photo was taken in Bali on the trek down a volcano after a sunrise hike. It was challenging, steep, rocky terrain with a group I was meeting for the first time (except for my best friend pictured here with me), and at 2 a.m. in the dark.
It was one of the best moments of my life and also one that terrified me as well. By the time we reached the top, after many stops and some who wanted to quit and turn around, reaching the summit right at sunrise and that moment of seeing that we all did it, encouraging one another not to quit and the beauty in that connection and experience in nature is something that would not have happened if I had not taken that risk and leap of faith. And when we got to the top, our guide had carried coffee and breakfast items and cooked them on a travel stove, to our surprise, and our shared experience was extended through the ultimate connector—food.
I’ve always found it such a compassionate and loving action to make someone breakfast—and I don’t mean just cooking the food and serving it—but to share it with another and the conversations that unfold that seem to come out and be okay to open only in those first few hours after waking.
Isn’t that how most of the best experiences are that shape us? When we set out to try something new in the unknown and push ourselves beyond our comfort zones amazing transitions happen within and often we meet fellow individuals going through that same experience as a result. It is in the learning of how to transition from the person you once were or thought you were into accepting who you are in that moment with the awareness that it is okay if who you are changes and evolves where true growth occurs.
Here, I hope to offer a safe space for us to connect through our shared experiences of loss, heartbreak, and transitions, and together share in how we move forward and become stronger, more aware, more loving, open, forgiving, kind, free, independent, and yet also connected.
Because your story is my story. We are all together in this journey at this time. Let’s come together to help one another and have fun, memorable experiences in the process.
One of the profound moments of this sunrise volcano hike was experiencing the vulnerability of the dark in the unknown, yet moving forward and transforming fear into clarity and renewal as the first rays of light began to stream through the ashen path. Until dawn, that time of waiting for the sun to dissipate the darkness and seeing glimpses of that with the hope that a new day brings. A new start. Another chance to begin again and see who we are and how we want to present ourselves in this space and connect and with whom.
My hope is that this empowers you to explore these transitions and how to work with them to get to where and who you want to be.
Sending love,
Angela Dawn
