Leave Well | Live Better: The neutral zone

The art of leaving your job well #20

In the last newsletter, I shared something important that I discovered only after I had stepped down from my role to Leave Well | Live Better. That is you can’t practise not being something.  The more I think about this, the more astonished I am that I didn’t realise it earlier, but sometimes obvious things need to be experienced – just thinking doesn’t do the job.

I was fortunate to be introduced to the Bridges Transition Model, which helped me gain perspective on what happens to us whenever we make or are forced into a major life change.  William Bridges’ books, especially ‘Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes’ are filled with valuable advice for anyone about to Leave Well | Live Better or even wondering about it. 

I was inspired by the distinction Bridges makes between change and transition, which I will explore in another newsletter.

A key plank of Bridges’ approach really helped me to understand why I felt ‘cut adrift’ in the first few weeks of my Leave Well | Live Better journey.  It’s what he calls the ‘neutral zone’, what I was living through without realising after ending my rabbinic career.  I’ve read this paragraph (from the Bridges website) many times:

The second step of transition comes after letting go: the neutral zone. People go through an in-between time when the old is gone but the new isn’t fully operational. It is when the critical psychological realignments and repatternings take place. It is the very core of the transition process. This is the time between the old reality and sense of identity and the new one. People are creating new processes and learning what their new roles will be. They are in flux and may feel confusion and distress. The neutral zone is the seedbed for new beginnings.

I cannot tell you how helpful it was to properly name and describe what was going on. Hurrah! I was normal after all (NB: this is disputed by my wife and children).

It is normal to be ‘in flux’ and to feel ‘confusion and distress’ at this stage of the Leave Well | Live Better process.  Not only is it healthy, but it would be unhealthy not to have gone through this.

Treating how I felt – which I began to think about – would have been a major error.

My neutral zone – which I admit hasn’t yet ended – involved wandering around, chatting aimlessly to people, travelling, sleeping and, I admit, driving my family to distraction.

Without entering and embracing the neutral zone, we risk retaining residual emotional connections to a previous identity that will hinder our ability to start something new with full vigour.

Imagine you were to Leave Well | Live Better – could you embrace your neutral zone? 

Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Next up: Leave Well | Live Better: Is your job a crutch?