Major life transitions can leave people feeling untethered from the roles and routines that once defined them.
Ashland-based storyteller and reinvention coach Ruth Halpern calls it a “life explosion” — a period when changes such as a career shift, divorce or retirement disrupt the story people tell about who they are.
Halpern said part of the difficulty comes from expectations about how life is supposed to unfold.
“I feel like the American myth says that life is supposed to be a steady ascent to some kind of even plateau where you get to surf for a long time,” Halpern said.
But that expectation doesn’t match the way most people experience life, she said.
“And that image is really destructive because it isn't how life works,” Halpern said.
Rather than viewing periods of transition as empty or unproductive, Halpern encourages people to use them to reconsider who they are apart from familiar jobs, relationships or other roles.
“Really, your relationship with yourself is the longest relationship you have in your life,” Halpern said.
Halpern draws on her background in storytelling to help people examine the narratives they use to understand their lives. She encourages people to move from seeing themselves only as actors responding to circumstances to becoming narrators who can decide how those experiences fit into a larger story.
That process, she said, can help people identify parts of themselves that remain even when their circumstances change.
“Tell your story because in telling it you shape it,” Halpern said.
Guest
- Ruth Halpern, storytelling expert and life reinvention coach
