Major life transitions. "We all got 'em, what are we gonna do with 'em?"

With all due respect, when Jimmy Buffet offered those words in the song "Fruitcakes" he was talking about relationships, not life-changing, potentially-overwhelming, character-shaping events - but the question fits perfectly.  We all face major life transitions from time to time and we're often not prepared to deal with them - so what do we do to get through them?

Personally, I faced what felt like a tidal wave of life changes when I was about 30 years old and I was completely unprepared.  I made one very important, life-changing decision and it triggered a series of other events that washed over me and left me overwhelmed and looking for help - which wouldn't end up coming from normal sources.   Imagine, if you will, making a heart-wrenching decision that would change your life for the better forever but would hurt some people that you loved - and that the people around you would judge you harshly for it.  I was open and honest about my decision with my community of family and friends, and for me that experience was isolating and led to feelings of intense sadness and loneliness.  When I shared it with family, who loved me very much, they supported me the best they could but for the most part they couldn't understand or agree with my decision and actions and also couldn't help but see the situation through their own "lenses" and wishes.  My community of friends also didn't understand or agree with my decision and actions, and most of them judged me harshly without understanding or empathy and simply turned their backs on me.  I turned to my church community, but felt strongly judged there as well and it felt like they wanted to "save" me through Christ by changing my mind.  As a last resort I tried the therapist route, and when I found one that I could connect with I finally felt objectively heard, but he also wanted to medicate and "fix" me.  In the end he made it clear he was disappointed that I wouldn't take antidepressants or change my path - and so I felt even further isolated.  I did end up working my way through a series of seven major life transitions that hit me in a six-month period, and I learned two very important things in the process: the first is that I'm stronger than I knew but didn't find out how strong I was until I faced overwhelming circumstances, and the second is that with hope, inspiration, and resources I can get through anything that doesn't kill me.   I decided then that at some point down the road I would build an organization that would serve as a "safe space" or "port in the storm" for people to turn to when their normal support channels weren't enough or let them down.

Two decades later, I'm now the founder and executive director of the nonprofit organization called The Intentional Living Collective and one of the things we offer is a program called The Life Transition Zone that offers hope, inspiration, and resources to people navigating major life transitions of many kinds.  We provide hope and inspiration to people in their most challenging times by offering a free collection of transition-relevant, short videos of real people in our community sharing their personal stories, experiences and learnings.  We then offer free access to community based, transition-relevant resources and programs that users can filter and search to find the help they're looking for - as well as helpful resources they didn't even know existed.  Are you or someone you care about currently navigating major life transitions?  Check out the all-new Life Transition Zone here!

The list of resources and programs in our database is limited, and we're working to expand and deepen it.  If you know of a resource that should be added to our database, please contact us at [email protected] and we'll work to add it.  At this time we're focused on the Southeast Michigan/Northwest Ohio region but this will expand over time with hopes of offering this program across the country.  We are, in fact, developing something even better called The Community Collaboration Portal that will make it much, much easier to connect people and organizations that need help and resources with the people and organizations that can offer them.  Stay tuned!