Lost In Transition – A Moroccan Story
It was late on a warm summer afternoon in Marrakech. We wandered through the souks and then enjoyed a nice dinner in a restaurant just off the main market square in the Medina and it was time to head back to the Riad where we were staying.
The Medina was built around 1122 and is the old town of Marrakech. It’s a twisting maze comprising 12 miles of tiny, pink-walled, dimly lit streets, and it can seem like a scary place to walk at night, especially if you don’t know where you’re going!
The walk to the center in daylight had been pleasant enough, but walking back in the dark was not an option, so we took a taxi.
the heart of darkness
Unfortunately the taxi driver misread the rather obscure address of our Riad and wrongly assumed we wanted to go to a night spot on the other side of the Medina. The language made it impossible to overcome the difficulties, so we set out on foot.
We asked a succession of strangers for directions, and yet it seemed like we were delving into what was quickly beginning to feel like Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” In hindsight I’m sure the locals who tried to help us were genuine and well-intentioned, but after an hour or two we were totally clueless and frankly scared.
lost in transition
Being in a foreign city in North Africa, late at night, in the dark, completely lost in the transition from the main market square to the dark location of our Riad, without tools to navigate and unable to communicate with the locals, it was terrifying.
To cut a long story short, we finally found someone who seemed to understand where we were trying to get to and it was such a relief when we recognized the alley (I wouldn’t dignify it by calling it a street) where our Riad was located. .
Needless to say, the next day we moved to another Riad in the center adjacent to the main market square.
The difference between change and transition
That experience of being lost in transition in the Medina illustrates the disorientation of location that we can experience when we experience an unexpected change in circumstances, and especially an imposed change that leads to difficult times.
At the time of writing, with the world slowly emerging from the Covid-19 lockdown, with our economies strangled, business bankruptcies and unemployment on the rise and our national governments shaking like drowning men clutching at straws, I think it’s fair to say that many of us are experiencing difficult times as a direct result of imposed change!
The purpose of this article is to establish a framework for understanding what is happening to you and to go beyond the circumstantial changes and address the internal psychological and emotional impacts and how you can deal with them as well.
The first key point to note is that there is a distinction between the events, situations, and circumstances that are thrust upon you and your inner response to these things.
In the world of change management this is known as “transition”.
William Bridges was one of the first thought leaders in the field of organizational transformation and change management to recognize the fundamental difference between change and transition, namely:
- Change is an external event. or situation that happens to you, and many times they impose it on you.
- Transition is the internal process. that you have to go through as you make your readjustment and realignment to the new realities.
Psychological and emotional transition is a three-stage process
Without an effective transition, a change is just a reshuffling of circumstances and you will not transition effectively, but will instead be stuck or lost in the transition.
Bridges’ transition model involves a three-phase process:
- Finish, Lose, Quit Go – Every transition begins with an end. We have to let go of the old before we can pick up on the new, not just externally, but internally, where we maintain our connections to people and places that act as definitions of who we are.
- The Neutral Zone – This is an autumn time. One of the difficulties of being in transition in the modern world is that we have lost our appreciation for this gap between the ending and letting go and the new beginning, we find it disturbing. But as in nature, fallow time is a necessary part of the process. It is a time of death and rebirth.
- The new start – This is where we develop a new identity, experience new energy, and discover a new sense of purpose that allows us to make change work.
Transition is a psychological process of inner reorientation and self-redefinition that you have to go through in order to incorporate the effect of external changes in your life.
One of the main causes of the difficulty you will experience with transition is that it necessarily involves letting go of something.
The letting go process is often unsettling and disconcerting.
Therefore, a fundamental element of the transition is the acceptance of that letting go. Without that acceptance, you will be trapped in denial, anger, or resistance.
I leave you with 2 empowering thoughts:
# “This too shall pass”
# “When you can’t control what happens, challenge yourself to control how you respond to what happens. That’s where your power lies.”
Read more: Lost in transition
