Over the years, I’ve worked with many clients as they made their way through the change cycle. Some of them called me because they’d been thrown into Square One and needed help navigating their way through Square One and on to Square Two. Other clients called me when they were in Square Four (the Promised Land) but had a feeling they weren’t going to be there much longer (they were usually right.)

  • One client was thrown into Square One when her husband of many years left her for another woman;
  • Another client realized she couldn’t keep doing the same job, even though she was really good at it and made a lot of money at it;
  • Yet another client was thrown into Square One by the death of an acquaintance, someone he barely knew, but whose life was eerily parallel to his own, at least on the outside.

Each of these clients would later describe their lives as “before X happened” and “after X happened.” “X” is the catalytic event that pushed them into Square One.

Whenever you enter Square One, whether you get there by seeing a positive sign on a pregnancy stick after months of trying to get pregnant or you lose a job you thought you’d never lose, you need to stop and grieve your old life before you can start to move toward your new life. Grieving takes time so don’t make any big decisions right away.

I think one of the reasons it took me so long to make positive changes in my life back when I was working full-time as a physician is because I had identified myself as a doctor so completely. I thought caring for patients would be my life’s work and it took me years to let go of seeing myself only as a physician. The catalytic event, I can see now, was getting married to a man with two children and suddenly seeing myself as a wife and stepmother as well as a physician. If I could be a wife and stepmother as well as a physician, maybe I could also be and do other things as well as be a physician.

Once you have processed the fact that your old life (or identity) is no longer yours, you enter the middle of Square One: the threshold to your new life or identity. It’s really the middle of nowhere as you’ve let go of your old life but haven’t really embraced your new life—again, I was in this place for years with regard to my work life.

Anthropologists call this time “a liminal period,” which means “a time on the threshold.” When you are engaged but not yet married is clearly a liminal period, but we also experience liminal periods whenever we make a major life change or transition. At one point in my career, I no longer thought of myself as “just” a physician, but I really didn’t have a clear idea of what I would be. I had lost my old identity but didn’t have a new one to replace it—yet.

In Finding Your Own North Star, Martha Beck states the mantra for Square One of the change cycle: “I don’t know what the hell is going on, and that’s okay.” Allow yourself to be in that place of not knowing what comes next. It’s enough to know that the old life doesn’t fit anymore. Here are more techniques for navigating through Square One:

  • Stay present.
  • Gather information.
  • Make small moves.
  • Be willing to say, “I don’t know.” (Because then you can find out.)
  • Listen to your gut.

Can you think of a time when you were in Square One of the change cycle? What helped you navigate through this time in your life?

Next week I’ll discuss Square Two: Dreaming and Scheming in more detail.