The Wisdom of Transition: The Quiet Before Becoming

What happens after you survive the messy middle of transition? There’s a profound but often-missed space that emerges just before you step into your new chapter. In this final post of our Wisdom of Transition series, we explore the Breathing Room, the quiet space before becoming – where integration, gratitude, and coherence transform survival into mastery.

Surviving the Messy, In-Between Stage

rule number four: first there is an ending, then a beginning, and an important empty or fallow time in between ~ William Bridges, author, speaker, preeminent authority on change and transition

In our last post, Navigating the Messy Middle, we explored the messy stage of change and the powerful wisdom it offers. In my doodle below, I break this phase into four distinct stages within the mess we all tend to fear.

And why do we fear it? Because change asks us to loosen our grip on what we know as we move from an old version of what we hold dear, into something unfamiliar. And that kind of transition is often scary and rarely comfortable!

But we don’t have to fear change simply because it can be messy and uncomfortable. In the graphic above I offered a new way to view the messy stage of transition – one that has structure and is designed to help you make sense of it and use it intentionally for growth and transformation.

As a brief recap, we begin with what I called the unpacking zone. This is where you lay everything out: what’s changing, what stays, and what belongs to the chapter you’re leaving behind. This is also where it gets difficult, because sorting also means letting go – not everything can come with you as you outgrow parts and pieces.

Yet this stage is crucial. Because in releasing what no longer fits, clarity emerges. You begin to see what truly matters, what you genuinely want and what will bring you fulfillment and growth in the chapter ahead.

When you don’t resist that work or the clarity it brings, it carries you forward with more grace and flow, giving you the strength to survive the messy stage. You may come out a bit bruised by the process but intact nonetheless.

This is the wisdom hidden inside the messy stage – wisdom most people never notice. We tend to assume that change is chaotic, unstructured and that nothing meaningful comes from the struggle or the process itself. But in my experience, the opposite is true.

In our Wisdom of Transition series, we’ve been sharing that change does have an underlying structure, if – you’re willing to look deeper. And we call that structure – transition. It’s what guides us from old to new, today to tomorrow, present to future.

When we understand this, we can use transition to our advantage – accelerating growth and shaping a new chapter with intention, rather than stumbling through change in chaos, crisis or worse.

But surviving the messy stage isn’t the end of transition. There’s an even subtler, more profound space that comes just before you step fully into what’s next – I call this space the Breathing Room.

The Breathing Room 

transition always starts with an ending. To become something else, you have to stop being what you are now; to start doing things a new way, you have to end the way you are doing them now; and to develop a new attitude or outlook, you have to let go of the old ~ William Bridges

Think of the Breathing Room as the space where your next version is taking shape. By the time you get to this subtle stage, you have already survived the chaotic, the foggy, the formless and the stressful in-between, messy stage of transition – congratulations!

Now as you go with flow, you enter a subtle stage most people either never get or miss. But if you can fine-tune your ability to be present in the moment and observe how you feel, you’ll start to notice a subtle space of stillness and peace opening up for you right before you enter your new chapter.

At this point, you’ve done the work – no more pushing or fighting, no more urgency, no more messy to sort through and release, now you can just breathe as the dust settles. You’re enroute to your new chapter and now you sit in a stable space where you can gently become. And that space, if you’re lucky enough to feel it, is what I call the Breathing Room. Not just a space of  stillness but where the scattered pieces become a unified whole through integration and gratitude.

Inside the Breathing Room – The Art of Integration 

Integration is the art of weaving difference into unity. ~ inspired by Irmgard Bartenieff, dance theorist

Remember in the messy stage, you were releasing what couldn’t come with you, and clarifying what can and then going with the flow to the next chapter. It’s in that flow process, as you acknowledge what you’ve gained and learned that integration occurs.

Integration is combining parts into a whole. And in the transition process, it means internally weaving together what you’re keeping with who you want to become in your new story.

As I’ve shared in the Depth Matters Podcast and other posts, I retired from the military in 2022 after 21 years in the service. And I expected the transition from military to civilian life to be smooth sailing. After all, I had spent years prior planning for every eventuality (finances, housing, job, etc) and so I felt – prepared. Boy was I wrong!This massive transition exposed some major gaps I wasn’t expecting around my identity, deep wounding and some hurtful ideas around self-worth and value that I didn’t see coming and physical limitations I had to accept. So the smooth transition I envisioned, became even messier than I thought as I stumbled onto the messy stage.

I spent a good solid three years+ in that messy space – unpacking, releasing, grieving and clarifying – again and again and again. Let me tell you: unpacking 21+ years of a challenging and rewarding life experience – is not for the faint of heart! But that’s what my personal story dictated. And while some releasing and clarifying remains still, the bulk of my work is complete, and now as I ride the wave into my next journey, I find myself taking pause and in the Breathing Room.

In this stage, I’ve done the work and now I’m gently integrating the lessons and hard-won insights and perspectives of my old chapter and old version into the new version I want to become. It’s an intentional process of bringing together everything I’m keeping – every lesson, every challenge, every triumph, every great laugh, every memorable story, every important person to me – everything I’ve learned, earned and assembled into my universe, weaving it all into the most creative, authentic version of who I want to become next.

Gratitude – The Glue That Connects

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. ~ Melody Beattie, author

And the special kind of glue that makes integration possible, that makes it stick is gratitude. Yet gratitude is so much more than just feeling thankful for the good things in life. It’s also appreciating the lessons embedded in the challenges, the struggles, the failures – everything that shaped your growth. When you look at gratitude this way, you can look back at your old chapter and see its incredible value and impact. It wasn’t just a chapter you lived – it shaped who you’ve become. As you gain this deeper appreciation for what you’ve experienced and how far you’ve come, fear of the unknown, of the next chapter tends to dissipate.

Because you’re not starting this new chapter from scratch, you’re starting it enriched by every experience and everything you’ve gained in your life thus far. Not everything can come with you as you embark on a new major life chapter, but that doesn’t take away from the power and wisdom of your previous experience.

That is the gift of the Breathing Room. You have a chance to stabilize and prepare for a new story and while you do, you look back at the past, not as a burden, but as a tremendous gift of experience, of wisdom and of growth. You bring the lessons and the people with you, integrating them into this quiet space of becoming.

Coherence – The Quiet Space of Becoming with Intention

Some people fight transition all the way and bewail their fate, while others come to recognize that letting go is not defeat – that it may, in fact, be the start of a whole new and rewarding phase of their lives. ~ William Bridges

In this quiet space of becoming, you grow into coherence – the quality of being consistent and forming a unified whole. Here’s a secret I’ve come to uncover in the many major life changes I’ve experienced – life will ask you time and time again, to expand, to stretch, to grow, to change and to become more in many major chapters in your life story. The key is learning to do that coherently, which means not experiencing each transition into a new chapter as a chaotic, fragmented version of yourself but rather as an aligned, whole version of yourself instead.

How? By leaning into the power of coherence. Think of coherence like music. Melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, tuning, etc. – each element must find its place within the composition. When they do, the result is coherent: organized, resonant, powerful. When they don’t? Discord and distortion within which feels like nails on a chalkboard.

I will write and speak often about coherence (and alignment) in the coming year but for now….

Know this: coherence in transition depends on your ability to be intentional and deliberate about your change process. Because what you want, is to move into each life chapter intact and whole – with your values, actions, beliefs, relationships and purpose in alignment with who you are and who you aspire to become.

That is the secret to transition rarely discussed. Every major life transition offers you an opportunity to get closer to your own coherence, your own inner alignment, your own authenticity if you can learn to meet these powerful moments with an intention to expand and grow into your greater self each and every time.

Final Thoughts – From Survival to Mastery

The next time you stand at the threshold of major change – for example entering adulthood, starting a new relationship, graduating, getting promoted, starting a business, retiring, reinventing yourself – recognize this isn’t routine change. It’s an invitation to grow with intention.

Most people leap from one major life event to the next, never realizing the powerful wisdom and opportunity that exists between the old and the new. They miss how this in-between space can help them let go of what they’ve outgrown and grow into more coherence, alignment and authenticity, so they don’t lose their way or spend years piecing their life back together at each transition point (see my story above).

Instead, you can use each major change event as an opportunity to gain greater clarity and wholeness. By approaching transition with the intention to grow in alignment and authenticity, you step into every new chapter as the most coherent version of yourself yet – with your music intact and ready to expand, poised for the adventure ahead with purpose and heart.

Much love out there to those in major change and going through life’s transitions. Keep going, right there with you!

Love, Carmen