Too Much Change All At Once: The Transition Stack
“There’s a strange, dislocating feeling that I’ve been trying to put to words for weeks: the feeling that who I am now, and who I was before, are strangers—with lives so different, they’d hardly recognize each other were they to pass on the street.
Friends,
I haven’t written since June, because summer has been rich and busy. Mercifully, I’ve been emerging from a season that reflects the subject line of this article: too much change all at once.
What happens when so many parts of your life change that the floor drops out beneath you?
What happens when—on the other side of all that change—you barely recognize who you were before?
In previous newsletters, I’ve shared that it’s been some years of upheaval for me. A burnout and career pivot; a breakup and crushing betrayal; significant shifts to family and friendship. Two years of staying afloat in a very choppy tide.
The amount of change during this time has felt… anomalous. I couldn’t understand why everything was unraveling at once, and I kept waiting for a gentler season.
I call these periods transition stacks: when several significant life changes occur within a short span of time, and begin compounding one another.
Transition stacks can feel unlucky and unlikely. And sometimes, they are. Due to circumstances entirely outside of our control, we might lose our job, watch a loved one get diagnosed with cancer, and face a breakup—all within a span of months.
But often, transition stacks aren’t as random as they seem— because a single transition kickstarts a ripple effect of change.
Whether chosen or unchosen, significant life transitions don’t just shift our external circumstances (like our job or our relationship); they rearrange our internal sense of meaning, identity, purpose, values, and desires.
Needs that we suppressed demand to be prioritized.
Values that were violated become non-negotiable.
The parts of us that were ignored in the last chapter beg to come forward now.
Once those internal changes take hold, we’re likely to outgrow other areas of life, because they were built around a version of us that only exists in the past.
Understanding this ripple effect doesn’t eliminate the transition stack—but it can make it easier to hold.
In my case, after years of postponing balance and connection for the sake of work, I went through a crushing burnout—the type that drains every last ounce of your energy, and leaves you unable to summon even the vaguest memory of passion.
Not long after, my long-term romantic partnership shattered in light of an enormous betrayal—the “he-was-living-a-double-life-for-four-years” sort. (I haven’t shared much about this, because it still feels more wound than scar—but I will, eventually.)
Two of the things I’d been most devoted to—my work, and my partnership—had collapsed, leaving me disenchanted, bitter, and wishing I’d caught the signs of dysfunction sooner. Were I to simplify the lessons I took from this time, they would sound something like:
I will protect myself. I will take better care of myself. I will catch dysfunction before it’s too late. I will not postpone my joy.
These didn’t feel like vague self-help mantras. They were visceral and embodied, as though my insides had made the decision before my conscious mind caught up.
As these new beliefs took hold, the ripple effect cast outward, and my transition stack piled higher.
I began to notice that I felt ill-at-ease in certain friendships and family relationships where I emotionally over-extended myself—where I chronically played a caretaking role. A classic eldest daughter, I had a high capacity for supporting others, and for a long time, caring for those who needed more than I did felt aligned with my values.
But now, that caretaking violated my internal commitments. Boundaries followed. And despite eight years of teaching recovering people-pleasers how to self-advocate, setting boundaries in loving, complicated relationships is still some of my hardest personal work.
Some of those relationships took a new, healthier form; some entered a strange liminal territory as the rules and expectations of our intimacy shifted; and some ruptured altogether, which came with its own season of grief.
I was jaded at the toll this time took on my spirit—desperately seeking respite from what felt like constant heaviness. I began looking for a new apartment, in a new neighborhood. For a fresh start.
Within the span of a few years, every major part of my life—work, romance, friendship, family, and community—had reconfigured.
In hindsight, the cascade of change makes sense. But at the time, it felt like I had no solid ground to stand on.
During a transition stack, it's hard not to look at your life and believe, deep down, that it’s falling apart.
As humans, we have a deep psychological need for coherence: for the events of our lives to fit together into a story that makes sense. Remembering our past isn’t enough; we need to feel connections between who we were, who we are now, and who we could become.
Psychologists call this inner story our narrative identity. It gives us an internal sense of continuity: the feeling that we’re still the same person across time, even as our circumstances, roles, relationships, and beliefs change.
Transition stacks can feel particularly destabilizing because they rupture that sense of continuity in several places at once.
This summer, my transition stack has been resolving one block at a time, slowly giving way to new beginnings.
I’ve been falling in love, watching my heart cautiously reopen after I was sure it had protectively—and permanently—stitched itself shut.
Work has felt steady and grounded—meaning without hustle, mattering without becoming my entire identity. (The phrase that comes to mind is “emotionally sober”: I’m neither chasing highs, nor crashing into lows).
More and more, my social connections feel like a healthy balance of deep meaning and playful levity.
I savor this temporary solid ground, but I don’t want to spin a myth of perfection. These new beginnings carry their own, complex kaleidoscope of feelings.
Joy and relief at being reunited with vitality and desire. Gratitude for things—love, motivation, purpose—I wasn’t sure I’d ever experience again. Energy. Cautious optimism.
And beneath it all, a strange, dislocating feeling that I’ve been trying to put to words for weeks: the feeling that who I am now, and who I was before my transition stack, are strangers—
with lives so different, and values so divergent, that they’d hardly recognize each other, were they to pass on the street.
I love who I’ve become. I wouldn’t trade her—or the wisdom she’s earned—for anything.
But sometimes, I remember who I was before—her convictions, her fiery motivation, her innocence, her trust—and my breath catches in my chest, like I’m glimpsing a ghost in the mirror. She is a dear friend I once loved and deeply miss—even though I feel no desire to return to her life.
The chasm between my two selves, past and present, is a form of grief for me. I’ve been calling this feeling chronoxenia (kroh-noh-ZEE-nee-uh), from the Greek chronos (time) and xenos (stranger): the grief of becoming a stranger to your former self.
In those moments, I try to remember that the person I’ve become didn’t emerge from nowhere. The seeds of her strength, resilience, and courage were present in the person I was then. They grew when hardship demanded them.
Seeing my former self not as a distant stranger, but the beginning of who I would become, dulls the grief and builds a bridge across the chasm. It helps me feel whole.
If you’re living through a transition stack—or, like me, have recently emerged from one—you might have the unnerving sense that your new and old selves are miles apart. There is a relieving and beautiful feeling of integration in taking time to remember how the person you were then became the person you are now—and how your old choices helped you become capable of making these new ones.
I’ll be writing more over the next few weeks about what I’ve been learning, both from my own time of change, and from the work of accompanying so many people through the disorienting process of outgrowing old chapters and beginning anew.
I’d love to hear from you: Have you experienced a transition stack? What are you currently outgrowing—and what are you moving toward? Leave a comment below.
Sending all my care,
Hailey
PS: If you’re in a transition and struggling to know what comes next, I’m teaching a live workshop on September 22 called Letting Your Values Guide Your Next Chapter (recording available). You don’t need to know your final destination to start moving toward what matters. Learn more and reserve your spot here.
I’m Hailey, and I help people outgrowing identities built on approval, achievement, and others’ expectations step into a more vital and self-trusting life. You can learn more about working with me one-on-one here.