Growth Begins At The Edge of Our Comfort Zone

Many of us know someone who is graduating this spring. Perhaps you have been invited to a party to celebrate the graduate's achievement. Graduation is a rite of passage that merits celebrating an individual's perseverance in achieving their goals. Graduation is also a transition and rite of passage for loved ones closest to the graduate as they face a new chapter in their lives.

Amidst all the joy and celebration surrounding graduation, other emotions like anxiety and loss are often easy to overlook. We know and even expect that anxiety and loss are feelings that will accompany transitions that are neither planned nor desired, such as a sudden job loss, a death of a loved one, or a health crisis. The fact is, though, that even transitions that we plan and wish for can also create great feelings of anxiety and loss. Shifts of this kind include retirement, moving, getting married, starting a new job, welcoming a new member into the family, and graduation.

Positive transitions can also be challenging because, as with all significant life changes, they involve a person leaving what for them has been a comfort zone. Any time we step out of our comfort zone, we are bound to feel a whole range of emotions, from excitement to loss. Stepping out like this is the only way that growth can happen, and so that's why graduates and others desiring to grow are willing to take that step.

While we celebrate graduations in this month of May, we also continue to remember that it is Mental Health Awareness month. One way to bring these two together is to be intentional about supporting our graduates' mental health by anticipating, accepting, and normalizing the full range of emotions they and those closest to them may be experiencing.

An essential part of mental health awareness is helping people be more comfortable with the full range of feelings and emotions they are experiencing. A simple way to express the importance of being comfortable with emotions that we typically find unpleasant is the idea to "name it, claim it, frame it, and tame it." When we help graduates understand that, as with all meaningful life transitions, both pleasant and challenging emotions are a normal part of the experience, we provide them with a more expansive and helpful frame within which to name, claim, and tame the full range of emotions they are experiencing.

So to any graduates that may read this column, we celebrate you! Take time to honor your achievements and also take time to honor the full range of feelings you (and your loved ones) may be having as you step into the next stage of growth in your life.

Making It Personal:

Do you know a graduate that you can celebrate and support as they transition to the next stage of their lives? Are you currently in the midst of stepping out of a comfort zone in your life? If so, how can you best support your mental health and well-being through this time of transition?

**We also want to let you know that we will be taking a break this summer after next week's column and podcast. This will give us some time for vacation and the needed bandwidth to focus on a few other projects that need our attention. We will resume our weekly column and podcast right after Labor Day.