Life Transitions

A life transition is any change that reshapes your daily life or your sense of who you are: moving country, changing career, becoming a mother, children leaving home, or returning to a place that no longer feels like home. Even wanted changes involve loss. Life transition counselling gives you space to take stock of what's ending and what you want next, at your own pace.

Why does change unsettle us, even good change?

Change asks a lot, even when it's chosen. In 1967, Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe asked people to rate how much readjustment various life events demanded. Alongside obviously painful events like bereavement, their list included marriage, pregnancy, a move to a different line of work, a son or daughter leaving home and a change of residence (Holmes and Rahe, 1967). Happy or not, each one meant reorganising a life.

The counselling psychologist Nancy Schlossberg developed a model for understanding how adults adapt to transitions. One of her useful insights is that transitions aren't only events. Some are "non-events": the promotion that never came, the baby that didn't arrive, the move home that keeps being postponed. How a transition affects you depends partly on how you see it and what support you have around you (Schlossberg, 1981).

That may explain why two people can go through the same change and feel completely different about it.

Signs a life change is weighing on you

Transitions don't always announce themselves as the problem. You might notice:

• Feeling tired or flat for no obvious reason, weeks or months after the change.
• Sleeping badly, or waking with a sense of dread.
• Snapping at people you love, then feeling guilty about it.
• Missing your old life while feeling you're not allowed to say so.
• Struggling to make decisions, even small ones.
• Feeling like a visitor in your own life.

None of these is a diagnosis. They're often signs that a lot has changed at once. The stress resources collect trusted reading on how pressure builds and what eases it.

How does moving country change you?

A move abroad touches almost everything at once: language, work, friendships, food, the way you're seen by others. Imagine arriving in Lisbon with a good job and a nice flat, and still feeling oddly flat yourself three months later. Nothing is wrong, exactly. Everything is just unfamiliar.

The page on identity and belonging looks at who you become after a move. If you'd like to check in with how you're doing, the expat wellbeing check-in is a short, private reflection tool.

What if you change career, or lose one?

Work often carries a big part of how we see ourselves. Changing career can bring excitement and real doubt in equal measure. Losing work you didn't choose to leave, through redundancy, illness or a partner's relocation, can shake your sense of being capable. The page on the trailing spouse looks at that last situation in detail.

If you've moved countries for a new role, two transitions arrive together. You're learning a job and a culture at the same time, often without the people who would usually remind you what you're good at.

You might find yourself asking "who am I if I'm not this?" That's a hard question, and a worthwhile one.

Why can becoming a mother feel like losing yourself?

Motherhood changes your body, your relationships, your time and your sense of self. Many women feel love and loss side by side: love for the baby, and grief for the freedom or career they had before. If you're far from your own mother and sisters, the absence can feel sharp.

The NHS notes that feeling down or tearful for a few days after birth is common and usually passes within two weeks. If it lasts longer or gets worse, please speak to your GP, midwife or health visitor (NHS, postnatal depression). Counselling isn't a substitute for that assessment. The pregnancy and postnatal resources list specialist support.

What happens when children leave home?

The "empty nest" can arrive with relief, pride, sadness and a strange quiet. If much of your identity has been built around caring for others, as it is for many women from close-knit families, you may suddenly have more time and less sense of what it's for.

This can also be a time of rediscovery. Carl Rogers believed that people have a natural pull towards growth, which he called the actualising tendency. Sometimes it only gets room once the busiest years are over.

Why is returning home so hard?

Going back can be harder than leaving. You've changed, home has changed, and people may expect you to slot straight back in. Many returners describe feeling like a stranger in their own country. Relatives may expect you to be exactly who you were when you left, while you no longer quite fit there, or in the place you came back from. The glossary entry on reverse culture shock explains this in brief.

How does life transition counselling help?

Person-centred counselling doesn't hand you a five-step plan for change. It starts with how the change feels to you, which may be quite different from how it looks from outside.

In practice, the work might include:

• Naming what's been lost. Even when the change was good.
• Making room for mixed feelings. Excitement and dread can sit side by side, which counsellors call ambivalence.
• Exploring who you are now. Not who you were, or who you think you should be.
• Finding your own next step. Whether that's acting, waiting, or simply understanding.

If a transition has left you feeling stuck, the page on feeling stuck may help too. Because sessions are online, they can continue through a move, which is often exactly when people need them.

When to get other or urgent help

If your mood has been low for more than two weeks, or you're struggling to cope, please see a GP. The PHQ-9 questionnaire can help you describe how you've been feeling, though it isn't a diagnosis. If you're in immediate danger, or worried you might act on thoughts of harming yourself, please get help now:

• UK: call 999 or go to A&E. For urgent help that isn't an emergency, call NHS 111 and choose the mental health option. Samaritans are free on 116 123, 24 hours a day.
• EU: call 112.

Related reading

• After a breakup or divorce, when a relationship ending changes everything else.
• Grief far from home, when a loss abroad sets other changes in motion.
• Online therapy for expats, including working across time zones and moves.

I'm a trainee person-centred counsellor and BACP student member, working under supervision. You can book a session whenever you're ready.