For a while, everything paused. Streets emptied, schools and universities closed, and the days blurred into one another. At first, it felt temporary and extremely strange. Over time it became almost like the new normal.
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Most people come to therapy because something feels too much.
They say they feel anxious all the time. That they can’t stop overthinking. That they’re tired of the tension in their chest, the restless nights, the sense that something is wrong — even if they can’t quite say what.
And often, they say something else too: “I just want this anxiety to stop.”
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William Bridges calls them “new beginnings,” but it’s actually the final stage in a three-part map of transition.
First comes the ending. Then comes the middle bit: the “neutral zone,” which is neither here and now, nor back where you were. Only then, with luck and patience and perhaps some desperation, comes the new.
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When something ends, we tend to want a clean break and a fresh start. To move on and keep busy, not to dwell. That’s the cultural script, especially in fast-moving cities like London. But even if the outer direction is clear (and it isn’t always, by any means), inner change unrolls at its own pace, often slowly, sometimes messily and painfully.
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In spring of 2022 I moved out of London. A big transition. I wanted to live nearer my ageing parents and see what life outside the metropolis would be like. It turned out that I liked the fresh air and the birds singing in the high trees and the lack of traffic, just as I’d expected. What I wasn’t prepared for was the sense of loss. For the contradictory feelings going on inside, even while external life settled into its new patterns.
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