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The Way of Transition: Embracing Life's Most Difficult Moments By William Bridges ( Da Capo Press )
Release Date: 2001-12
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $15.95
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Product Description
William Bridges' lifelong work has been devoted to a deep understanding of transitions and to helping others through them. When his own wife of thirty-five years died of cancer, however, he was thrown head-first into the kind of painful and confusing abyss he had known before only in theory. An honest account of being in transition, this uncommonly wise and moving book is a richly textured map of the personal, professional, and emotional transformations that grow out of tragedy and crisis. Demonstrating how disillusionment, sorrow, or confusion can blossom into a time of incredible creativity and contentment, Bridges highlights the profound significance and value of endings in our lives.
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Amazon.com Review
When author Bill Bridges's wife died from breast cancer, he began to question all his previous groundbreaking work on transitions. Having conducted seminars and written bestselling books (Transitions, Managing Transitions), Bridges had built a reputation as an expert on the topic. And yet, "I felt now that my words had totally failed to match in depth the experience of actually being in transition," he explains. After floundering in self-doubt for months after his wife died, Bridges embarked on a spiritual pilgrimage through Wales. During his visits to sacred sites, Bridges began to see that he hadn't been misguiding people. Rather, he simply had more to offer on the subject of transition--more depth, more spirit, and above all else, more experience. So at 66 years old he wrote this excellent and highly personal book in which he examines the pain and challenge of transition--how it is a time of letting go of the past while taking hold of the future. Because Bridges weaves his personal story into the narrative he comes off as a wizened sage rather than a cocky aficionado. "Change can come at any time, but transition comes along when one chapter of your life is over and another is waiting in the wings to make its entrance," he begins. "Needless to say it is impossible to imagine a new chapter is starting when your wife's death has just closed down what feels like your whole life. You simply cannot imagine a new chapter...." Overall, this is a book that offers an abundance of insights without faltering into self-help clichés or specific how-to advice. Instead, Bridges examines the events that bring about transition (marriage, death, change of vocation, tragedy, and crisis) and why it's so important to fully experience these transitions and how they offer opportunities for closure as well as launch pads for enormous personal growth. Readers of The Way of Transition will find an author who manages to be humble, accessible, and highly intelligent as he weaves the writings of Tolstoy, Herman Hesse, Emily Dickinson, Carl Jung, and Anäaut;is Nin into his personal reflections. --Gail Hudson
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A Guide Through Life's Dark Night ( jrkirkham )
I often list the pros and cons of the books I review. This book, like most others, has a few drawbacks, but they are not important enough to list. What is important is to know that this book is one of the best guides possible for those who are going through losses and do not know where to turn. If you or someone you know is reeling from a major life set back this is the book you need to turn to. This book will help you process the loss, understand the empty feeling that follows, and will offer hope for a new beginning. This book is a first aid kit for the emotions.
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 Emotionally Powerful, Personalized Take on Transitions ( laughsunfun )
William Bridges revisits the topic of transitions after the death of his first wife. This is an emotionally powerful book and Bridges is brutally honest and open about his own personality and relationships. I give it 4 stars, though, because I'm not sure that he adds a whole lot to his orginal work on transitions.
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Getting personal wth William Bridges, Transition Guru ( mattm-bitstorm )
William Bridges surprised me with this extremely well-written and personal book. I am an executive coach who had read many of his other books and have often recommended Bridge's Managing Transitions to clients and friends in the business world. I opened the book expecting to find a how-to manual on getting through midlife in business,or through the loss of a job or some other similarly difficult but containable business transition. What I found was a deeply personal (and to me intensely meaningful description of) William's own life transitions through his job changes, marriage difficulties, and most significantly the death of his first wife and the transition that ensued. This beautifully written book reads more like a novel than a self help book, but the fact that it describes real transitions at a very deep level is exactly what makes it helpful. I congratulate the author for having the guts to write it.
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Adjusting to change ( jplyons5 )
The author is very professional in his knowledge of tranistion vs. change and the merging of the process so that one understands the need to understand transition and that understanding to facilitate change. It is a very personal account of his understanding of the value of "letting go". His wife of 48 years is about to pass and the culmination of their realtionship and acceptance of the change to come and the phases of tranistion. To me personally, the acceptance of "letting go" allowed me to move further into my life and relish the anticipation of what could be. But not until I "let go". To me that was an exceptional development. And it all had to do with understanding transition. I am deeply grateful as is my wife who is reading it now.
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Astonishing and wonderful ( marcylynn )
This is a engrossing book about what happens when a person who has made a career out of understanding "transitions" (and helping other people and organizations through times of transition) comes face to face with a gigantic transition. As Bridges dealt with the death of his wife and the concomitant end of a lengthy marriage, he found himself wondering if he really understood transitions at all. This book is the story of how he navigated that period in his life, how he achieved a new understanding of everything that had gone before, and what it has meant to him since.
There is a lot going on in this book. On one level, it is the story of a marriage. On another level, it is the story of how truly immersing oneself in the transitions one encounters can deepen a person's relationship both to the self and to the personal history that has created that self. And then there is the general philosophical musing about how a person can open himself to the possibilities that come with major life changes. It's not a book of ideas about what to do (for that, the same author has a couple of other books on transition), but instead it's a deeply personal reflection on the meaning of life and life's transitions.
Highly recommended for anyone who is of a contemplative turn of mind.
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Addiction
