A transition is a vital period of adjustment, creativity, and rebirth that helps one find meaning after a major life disruption.*
Bruce Feiler

With only slight exaggeration I would say that we are not; we continually constitute ourselves anew and differently at the intersection of all those influences that reach its the sphere of our being.**
Rainer Maria Rilke

When I look back over my life
I see many different Geoffreys –
I imagine that you have had many
incarnations too.

Annie Murphy Paul suggests that the
continuous-me or -you is not to be found in our minds
but in our bodies:

Because our hearts beat, because our lungs expand, because our muscles stretch and our organs rumble – and because all these sensations, unique to us, have carried on without interruption since the day of our birth – we know what it is to be one continuous self, to ourselves and no other.^

The more aware we are of the messages of our bodies –
Interoception –
The more we are aware of who we are:
I feel, therefore I am.^

Everything else is open for change –
Through urges from within
or pressures from without –
Change is one thing guaranteed.

This is a wonderful thing,
Expressive of the wonder of what it is to be
human,
For whilst we do not shed skins or antlers or fur or shells
as other creatures do,
We are able to shed our old stories
and grow into the new;
A sense of stuckness or trappedness
may simply be a sign or message to us
that it is time to change.

The sense of wonder can also help you recognise and appreciate the mystery of your own life.^^

The word that comes to me from my past is askesis –
A place of confinement
(stuckness?, trappedness?)
without which there is no
energy or purpose,
A place or moment of
transformation.

*Bruce Feiler’s Life Is In the Transitions;
**Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters On Life;
^Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind;
^^John O’Donohue’s Eternal Echoes.