When my oldest daughter was around 3-years-old, she went through a phase (that lasted about a year-and-a-half) in which she only wanted to wear a Cinderella costume my sister made for her. Now, lovely compliment to my sister. It was a beautiful dress, but my daughter simply couldn’t understand why a person can’t wear the same dress every day, especially a 3-year-old person who tended to get ketchup all over herself, and who also liked to roll in the grass. We came up with various agreements and compromises. She had to wear something else to pre-school, but could put the costume on as soon as she got home. She could wear it to the store, but not to a play date. On, and on, we went. Next, I turned to books, and advice, and the pediatrician. I took her on outings to look at, and buy other outfits she would like with Elmo, or the Tellytubbies, or a princess on them. Anything! Nothing worked. I would wring my hands, and she would dance around the family room in the light blue and white dress that became more dingy every week.

As the white lace faded to a bit yellow, and the light blue seemed to fade to gray, she never saw it. She would put that dress on, and it transformed her, improved her mood, made everything better. Eventually, I sort of gave up, and we would come home and I’d be the first one reaching for the dress. One day, she didn’t seem all that interested, wanted to finish what she was coloring, wanted to play with the dog. It happened slowly, not like a light switch, but like a dimmer. There were more days without the dress, and I didn’t ever realize it at first. And then, oddly enough, I’d be pushing the dress and she’d be shrugging her shoulders.

This is one of life’s transitions that come with a recipe of emotions. August always does this to me. It’s my birthday month, so I’m going from one age to a “kind of hard to swallow” different age. I still have a college age child, so there’s back to school. There’s the seasons changing. The mornings are cooler. The shadows longer in the afternoon. This year, it’s also the one year anniversary of my dad’s passing, and one year since my miracle eye surgery. And the problem with the recipe of emotions, is the ingredients just aren’t written down anywhere. I find myself slapped in the face by realizations, and overwhelm, and grief, and joy, and gratitude. And sometimes I have to stick them all in a blender and stir. The result can be a big hot mess.

Transitions are so complicated, and scary, and sometimes good! But there’s never a clear path, a map to follow. We all kind of find our way, I think, by taking a step back and considering what we put here, or there, and what we need more, or less of.

All those years ago, I had the feeling my little daughter was as conflicted as I was about letting go of the by then tattered dress. She still wanted to be a carefree princess, but she also wanted to by a “big girl,” and her heart seemed pulled in a tug or war with her brain. One day when she was much older, we came across the blue dress, quite a mess by then, and I told her about her love affair with it. She laughed, and held it and remembered.

I’ve been doing a lot of remembering in this transitional month for me. “Last year at this time…”

It’s a complex sorting out of processing the worst, and embracing the best. I must have tossed that dress at some point and now I wish I hadn’t. Reminders of the past always seem to help me embrace the future. I’ll remember that blue dress, my dad, all those struggles with my vision, how lucky I am to be this age. September will bring another phase of my life and yours. Let’s try and be ready together!

Life is full of transitions, many of which result in transformation! These transitions can be predictable, such as the transition from season to season, or less predictable and often more complicated transitions, such as switching careers or becoming a parent.

Just like the seasons of the year, we have seasons of our lives. These seasons include:

• childhood
• adolescence
• young adulthood
• adulthood
• middle age
• and finally our golden years.

Moving through life’s seasons can create a sense of uneasiness as we navigate uncertainty and a new normal. But on the other side of each transition is the potential for a beautiful transformation.

The same holds true for the less predictable transitions in life. Oftentimes when we have an unexpected transition, we find ourselves struggling to regain our footing. We may question why things have unfolded in the manner in which they did, or we may fight against the reality that things have changed and wish to live in denial. These are all natural responses. We are creatures of habit and find comfort in the status quo. However, these transitions oftentimes provide us with an opportunity for profound growth.

We only need to look to nature to see how transitions and transformations can catapult us forward in life. One of the most profound examples is that of the caterpillar. Similar to a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly, we can learn to embrace transitions and transformations as a beautiful part of our personal growth and development into a better version of ourselves. This involves understanding and embodying the arc of transformation.

The arc of transformation is inverted, and appropriately shaped like a smile; showing that the most challenging part (where the arc dips downward) of the transformation occurs in the middle (sometimes referred to as the messy middle!) This is when we are midway between our starting point (our comfort zone) and our completed transformation (our new normal.) The messy middle is the time when we need to deploy self-compassion and give ourselves some much-need and well-deserved grace.

During this time we can find ourselves experiencing fear and anxiety caused by the unknown nature of the future. Yet the truth is that the future is always unknown! We tend to think that things will remain as they are for the foreseeable future. Studies show that when people are asked to predict what their lives will look like in ten years, they believe they will be very similar to the way they are now. Yet, when asked what their lives were like ten years earlier, they report that they were vastly different than they are right now. I like to remind myself of this fact whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed during a transition period.

Transitions are a normal part of life. With practice, we can learn to reframe transition periods and approach them with excitement, maintaining a positive mindset as we move forward on our journey of transformation; knowing that it will end in an upward motion to complete the smile!