Sept. 26, 2022

How to cope with change using Bridges' Transition Model

How to cope with change using Bridges' Transition Model
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How to cope with change using Bridges' Transition Model

In this episode I explain the three key stages of change, and why we so often feel stuck in the middle stage, otherwise known as 'no man's land'. I also share a fascinating psychological experiment on journalling, and what it can teach us  about how to better cope with periods of big change in our lives. Connect with Cass:www.crappytohappypod.comhello@crappytohappypod.com www.instagram.com/crappytohappypodwww.tiktok.com/crappytohappypodJoin the free 7-day Happiness Challenge:www.cassdunn.com/happiness

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Transcript
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A listener production. Hello, and welcome to another episode of

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Crapya Happy Today, I want to share with you a

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theory of change or transition, basically an idea that might

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help you to understand how we manage and cope with

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change in life. This is particularly relevant to me at

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the moment, having just gone through a fairly major life change,

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and I shared this idea on my TikTok and also

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in a newsletter to my email subscribers, and I have

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had a huge response, so I know it really resonates

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with people, and so I wanted to share it with

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you as well. So this idea, this theory of transition

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was first developed by a guy called William Bridges who

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has now passed away. And this was way back in

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the seventies and he came up with this idea of transition,

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which was predominantly at the time. I believe he applied

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it to organizational change, but it's very much a theory

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of personal transition and how we navigate change. So the

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idea is that when change happens in your life, that

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is the circumstance that changes around you, that's the situation

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that changes, and that can happen very very quickly. So,

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for example, if you're in a relationship and you choose

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to end that relationship, or somebody chooses to end a

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relationship with you, then one minute you are together and

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the next you're not. You can finish your job on

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a Friday and start a new job on the following Monday. Similarly,

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you can move house, you can move into state, or

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like I did, you can hop on a plane and

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twenty four hours later hop off that plane and another

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part of the world, living in a new house in

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a completely different country, completely different time zone, different currency,

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different everything, And so it happens very very quickly. Transition

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is the inner process, the inner psychological process that goes

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along with that change, and that can take a lot longer.

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So Bill Bridges came up with this idea that when

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they're ever there is a change. The process of transition

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occurs in three stages. In the first stage, there is

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obviously an ending that's fairly self explanatory. Something has to end.

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In the ending stage, we are all about releasing something.

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We have to let something go. There is a process

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psychologically of letting go of the role that we played

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of often a sense of identity, structures and routines, relationships

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that even are broader than the primary relationship. If it's

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relationship that ends, there's all of the other extended relationships

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that go along with that, the routines, the rituals, the habits,

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the connections. There can be sadness in endings, and often

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there is sadness in endings, and even if the ending

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is by your own choice, it's still really important to

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acknowledge that there can be sadness involved in that. There

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can also be some process of disengagement from the old

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way of life, some disenchantment, disidentification, as I said, letting

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go of old identities. If you are married and then

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you're not your identity as somebody's wife or husband, the

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expectations that you know people have of you, that society

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has a view everything about that. There is this adjustment

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that has to happen is letting go. Somewhere in the future,

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there is a new beginning, and a new beginning is

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characterized by often a feeling of hope and optimism, of enthusiasm,

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new ideas, and there is a new way of life.

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There are new roles, new identity, new sense of who

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you are, new structures and routines, new relationships and everything

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is comfortable and familiar again, like there's this whole new you.

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Almost in between those two stages, there is this great, big,

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gaping void called the neutral zone. Bill Bridges called it

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the neutral zone, and he described it as a no

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man's land where the old way of life, everything that

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you knew, is gone. All of that familiarity, all of

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that routine, it's finished. But the new way of life

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hasn't really taken shape yet. There's nothing really there that

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is comfortable and familiar and secure and certain that you

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can grasp onto. So you're in this kind of emotional

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wasteland which is incredibly uncomfortable for a lot of people.

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If you've been there, you will know yourself. It is

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deeply uncomfortable. I described it when I sent an email

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out to my newsletter subscribers as feeling untethered, like there's

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nothing solid that I can put my hand on, like

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there's nothing to grasp. And we're not, as humans, particularly

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good at tolerating uncertainty. We vary along that spectrum of

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how comfortable we are with uncertainty, but as a rule,

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we generally don't cope well with too much uncertainty. We

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like familiarity. We like routine, we like structure and predictability

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in our lives. It's what makes us feel safe. And

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so when we're in this no man's land, it's uncomfortable.

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It's uncertain. We don't really have a clear vision of

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what that new future is going to look like. It

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hasn't taken shape yet, so we're in this space of

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having to surrender and to trust that everything's going to

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be okay when we don't really know what that's going

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to look like. So the thing about this neutral zone

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is that because it does feel so uncomfortable, it can

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be very tempting to either want to run back to

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what you knew before, to go back to what was

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familiar because that gives you that sense of safety and familiarity.

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Or it can be just as tempting to jump into

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something new, whether it's to leap into a new job

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or leap into a new relationship or something to have

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something to hold on to. And it can be a

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mistake to do either of those things if that is rushed,

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or if that is impulsive, or if that is done

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as a way to simply escape from the discomfort of

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the neutral zone. The neutral zone can be a really

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useful time and often is a time for self reflection,

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for really going inwards and reviewing your life, reviewing and

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reflecting on where you're at, where you've been, what it

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is that matters most to you, really considering your values.

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For pulling away. It is often characterized by kind of

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pulling away and this going inward. It's a great time

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to do things like journaling or meditation, or just spend

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time alone with yourself, as opposed to looking outwards and

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looking to other people for the answers or for somebody

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to tell you what you should do or that everything's

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going to be okay. Not that you shouldn't connect with people,

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but it is very important to go inward and connect

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with yourself. And what happens is that in time, the

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new beginning, the new ideas, and the new possibilities, they

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will begin to emerge fairly organically if you give yourself

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the time and the space to be in that no

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man's land, to be willing to tolerate that discomfort, but

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to trust that on the other side everything actually will

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be okay. One thing I found kind of interesting and

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a little amusing when I shared this idea on my

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TikTok was that somebody commented and asked how long does

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the neutral zone last? Which is, you know, hilarious because

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even that question in itself is looking for some certainty,

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and obviously there is no clear cut answer to that,

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depending on the type of change that you've gone through

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or are going through, depending on whether this was your

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choice or this was thrust upon you, depending on these significance,

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you know, the emotional significance of the change that you're

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going through, whether it is on the whole a positive

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or a negative change, All of these factors going to

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impact on how long that neutral zone kind of lasts,

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and what it looks like and what it feels like,

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and how quickly you emerge on the other side. If

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you find yourself in this neutral zone and you're struggling,

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there is one thing that I would like to share

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as a way of coping and as a way of

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helping you through that. Obviously, as I said, the most

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important thing, I think is to recognize and to understand

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where you're at and to realize that this is a

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normal part of the process. I think we can get

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very we live in this world where there's this sense

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of urgency and pressure to just get on with it.

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And that is such a mistake if you don't allow

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yourself the space, the psychological and the emotional space to

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accommodate this change, to allow yourself to go through that process.

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So obviously very important to just give yourself that time

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and space and to accept that it is normal for

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this to take some time, and that it does feel

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uncomfortable and that you will feel not yourself for a while,

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and that that's okay to give yourself permission to do that.

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But the other thing I wanted to share with you

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is this idea of expressive writing or in other words, journaling,

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And to be honest, I could make a whole separate

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episode about this, so maybe we will do that. But

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when it comes to change, particularly and particularly traumatic change

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or difficult change, then journaling can be a really powerful

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thing to do to help you to manage your emotions

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and to come through really emotionally well on the other

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side of that. So I want to share with you

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this one study and for all of you who don't

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consider yourself to be journalist, like I don't know, I'm

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not into journaling, Like what do I write? This is

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very clear, it's a very structured protocol where you simply

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journal for four days or five days, for twenty minutes

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at a time about the issue, about your thoughts and

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feelings about the change that you're going through. So this guy,

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James Pennybaker, came up with this protocol and one of

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the first studies that he did was back in nineteen

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ninety four, was with a group of men who had

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been made redundant from their jobs. So these men had

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been employed long term like this is that have twenty

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years plus of employment with the same organization. The average

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age was fifty four. They were all professionals, and through

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a restructure or whatever happened, they were all made redundant.

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So what they did was they took these men, they

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actually took sixty three of them, and they assigned them

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to a different group. One group, as I said, was

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instructed to write for twenty minutes a day for five days,

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specifically about their thoughts and feelings in relation to that

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job loss, the emotional impact of that job loss. Another

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group was assigned to write for twenty minutes a day

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for five days about just their day to day plans,

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what they had planned for the day, but particularly not

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to write about their thoughts and feelings about the job loss,

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and a third group were given no writing instructions at all,

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and as far as the researchers knew, they did not

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participate in any writing activity. That was a five day intervention.

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Eight months later, more than half of the expressive writing

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group had found full time employment, and approximately seventy percent

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had found some level of employment, whether full time, part time,

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or casual employment, compared with only twenty seven percent of

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the non writing group. Of those who found full time employment,

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as I said, fifty three percent of the expressive writers

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compared with twenty four percent. So half of the plan

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your day type writers compared with fourteen percent of the

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non writers, So this was significant. The other thing that

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they found when they interviewed these men eight months after

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they'd been made redundant, those who had participated in the

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expressive writing group had a much more positive effect. They

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were able to look back on that experience with a

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sense of perspective. Just generally, they had let go of

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a lot of the anger and the resentment and the

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bitterness that they naturally felt at the time that that

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had happened, whereas the non writers, the ones who hadn't

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participated in that journaling exercise, many of them were still

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very angry, very bitter, very much in blame mode, very

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much angry at the employer, at the system for putting

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them in this position, really not taking a lot of responsibility.

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So the emotional processing that had gone on was significant

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for these groups who had participated in the journaling exercise,

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and not just the emotional processing, but on a practical level,

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they had gone on to gain employment again, which is

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obviously significant. So I share that as just one example

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of a tool that might be helpful for you if

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you are navigating the neutral zone right now, that journaling

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exercise that could be useful for anything that you are

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going through in your life. And again, as I said,

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if you have never considered yourself to be one for

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journaling necessarily, or you never know what to write, or

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you don't have the time, or you look at the

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page blankly, then choosing one emotionally significant event and journaling

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about that for twenty minutes for four days has been

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proven over and over and over again. That study, that

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original study has been replicated many many times in many

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different circumstances. It's also proven to reduce the number of

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doctors' visits as can actually improve your physical health, improve

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your immunity has profound benefits physically and psychologically. The process

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of journaling. So if you are going through a change,

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and you are finding yourself feeling very lost and very

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confused and fearful and anxious about what is coming next

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for you, then could I suggest that maybe journaling could

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be one way that helps you to navigate that transition.

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Please do let me know if that is helpful for you,

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and of course email me hello atkastun dot com. Tell

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me if that resonates, ask me any questions that you have,

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and we will definitely address them in future episodes. I

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cannot wait to catch you next week on another episode

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of Crappy to Happy Listener