Remaking Rites of Passage to Change Your Mindset — and Your Life
I talked to a friend the other day who is in the middle of an acrimonious divorce. After she updated me, she shared that her company was about to go through another round of layoffs, her aging parents needed a lot of support, AND her tween son was starting to act out in school. “I am failing at everything,” she told me without a hint of drama in her voice. There is an old saying that the top five most stressful life events are divorce, the death of a loved one, job change, moving, and serious illness. These days, with all the complexity and uncertainty in the world, it is not uncommon for people to go through two or more of these stressful events simultaneously. This can be brutal, made even more so with the realities of our times: the uncertain fate of democracy; the increasingly destabilized climate and economy; escalating political polarization, bigotry, and violence; COVID-19; and the mental health crisis among our young people. With all of these happening simultaneously, it is increasingly difficult to stay resourced, grounded, and responsive to the day-to-day challenges of life. I have been helping people who are going through these big transitions as a facilitator for TED Courses, as a certified LifeCycle celebrant, as a ritual designer, and as a human who has been through the meat grinder of simultaneous major life transitions over the past several years. In this work, I have honed in on a realization that — regardless of the transitions people are dealing with — there is a great benefit to creating and enacting a rite of passage as part of the transitioning process.
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