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Some moments split a life into a clear before and after. A diagnosis. A death. A departure. A decision that, once made, can’t be quietly undone. These moments don’t always announce themselves as significant while they’re happening — sometimes their weight only becomes clear in hindsight.
What makes these turning points difficult isn’t only the event itself. It’s the disorientation that follows — the sense of standing somewhere unfamiliar, without the map that used to work. The old assumptions about how things go don’t quite apply anymore, and the new ones haven’t been written yet.
Research on how people navigate major life transitions describes this in-between period as its own distinct phase — not simply the end of one chapter or the start of another, but a genuine period of reorientation, where old routines and relationships are renegotiated against a changed reality (Schlossberg, 1981).
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There’s often pressure — from others, or from ourselves — to move through this quickly. But turning points that get rushed have a way of resurfacing later, in a different form, at a less convenient time. The alternative isn’t to dwell endlessly. It’s to actually name what happened, what it changed, and what it’s asking of you now.
“A turning point handled well doesn’t mean the hard thing didn’t happen. It means the next direction gets chosen deliberately, with clear eyes.”
If this is landing, it might be worth talking to someone. That’s what this work is for.
REFERENCES
Schlossberg, N. K. (1981). A model for analyzing human adaptation to transition. The Counseling Psychologist, 9(2), 2–18.