Looking Inward First: The Hidden Work of Change

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on a passage from the book Transitions by William and Susan Bridges that struck me deeply:

“The inner ending is what initiates the transition. You see, change can lead to transition, but transition can also lead to change.”

They go on to explain that sometimes a visible change like moving to a new city, starting a new job, ending a relationship, introducing a new habit, can trigger an inner transition. But sometimes, it’s the other way around: an inner shift, often quiet and invisible at first, eventually leads to external changes.

Standing on one of the bridges crossing the river Rhine in Cologne - moving to Cologne, was the external change that presented itself after a long inner transition, once sparked by my first time out at sea surfing.

For most of my life, I thought I understood change. I had experienced it in many forms from relationships evolving or ending, moving to different homes, to shifts in work environments, changes in financial circumstances, and transformations in my health and self-care practices. I knew how to make bold decisions, take action, and create something new.

But not all change is the same and if I’m honest, for a long time I also used change to avoid transition. It was easier to rearrange the furniture of my life than to sit in the empty room of my own inner questions. I could switch jobs, relocate or start a new project. I could do it all without fully pausing to ask myself why or what was truly ending inside me. What I often avoided was letting go of familiar roles, identities I had outgrown, expectations (mine and others’), and the comfort of what I already knew.

It was only when I entered coaching, that something shifted. Before rushing to initiate change, I learned to stay first and pause in the space between what was ending and what might begin. Instead of asking ‘What needs to change out there?’, my coaching sessions became an invitation to reflect on the ‘Why?’ and on what it is that is ending here and I am ready to let go of. 

That was not always a comfortable process. Endings rarely are. They often come with a sense of loss, even when we are releasing something that no longer fits as well. There’s a space between the old and the new that can feel like a void and quite often, I resisted it.

But as I learned to stay with that space, something remarkable happened:I discovered that when the inner ending is acknowledged and honored, the outer change evolved more naturally. I didn’t have to chase or rush to it. The new job, the new habits, the new relationships, as well as new places, they tend to emerge also as a reflection of my inner transition.

Looking back now, I see that the wish for an outer change could be both, the result from an inner transition or the initiation of one. In any case, such a wish is an invitation to pause, to listen, and to meet ourselves in a deeper way. They mark the quiet moment when we step out of who we’ve been, before we can fully step into who we are becoming.

And sometimes, that’s where the real beginning lives.