A Time of Transition
A seismic shift is underway ~ not just in our systems, but in what it means to be human.
We live within a time of great change. A seismic shift is occurring, delineating the edges of a world that once was and a new world that is coming into being.
Your body may already feel this. Mine does. Even if we don’t yet have words for it. Even if others insist that everything’s fine ~ that if we just keep scrolling, producing, or going along to get along ~ it’ll all work out.
But our nervous systems ~ and the earth’s ~ tell a different story. And it’s an important story to listen to.
“We are undergoing a crisis, torn between an old world that is coming to an end and a new world that has already begun.”
~ Maria Montessori, Education and Peace“This is a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced.”
~ Dee Hock, One From Many
A Moment Without Precedent
The level of change at hand is unprecedented. That means we have no real points of reference that can help us wrap our heads around it. To try to fathom it, its important to understand that the change we’re facing isn’t simply a change of season, or generation, or even a period of time. It is an epochal threshold.
“The crisis we are experiencing is not the sort of upheaval that marks the passage from one historical period to another. It can be compared only to one of those biological or geological epochs in which new, higher, and more perfect forms of life appeared, as totally new conditions of existence on Earth came about.”
~ Maria Montessori, Education and Peace
We often think of change as something linear or cyclical ~ a movement from one known state to another. But transitions are different. They mark the end of something familiar and the beginning of something unknown. They are portals ~ liminal spaces between stories, when old structures no longer hold, and new ones have not yet taken form.
We are living in such a portal now ~ one that asks us to relinquish old identities while sensing into what wants to emerge. Otto Scharmer speaks to this beautifully:
“Our moment of disruption deals with death and rebirth.
What’s dying is an old civilization and a mindset of maximum ‘me’...What’s being born is less clear but in no way less significant. It’s a future that requires us to tap into a deeper level of our humanity.”
~ Otto Scharmer, Leading from the Emerging Future
A seismic shift is occurring, delineating the edges of a world that once was and a new world that is coming into being.
An Invitation to Change Greatly
Zooming out to this larger historical context helps us hold compassion when our nervous systems feels uneasy, anxious, and overwhelmed.
These feelings are not a sign that something is wrong with us. Rather, they’re signals indicating our current form is no longer fitting well within the changing environment.
“Whenever a self-organizing system experiences any amplification process, change is at hand. If the amplifications increase to the level where they destabilize the system, the system can no longer remain as it is.
At this moment, the system is at a crossroads, standing poised between death and transformation. In science, this is known technically as a bifurcation point. For us humans, it is known as a moment of great fear, tinged, perhaps, with a faint sense of expectation.”
~ Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science
The bifurcation point is not simply theoretical. It is somatic. Felt. In fact, you may be feeling it now, as we stand poised at this momentous threshold:
“We are still in the period of transition from one age to another, standing with one foot in each.
As the two ages draw further apart we feel increasing strain, and will continue to do so until we place both feet firmly in the age we are entering.
We can of course step the other way and try to live our lives in a dying age. By so doing, however, we accelerate the demise of the institutions and the culture that are affected by such maladaptive behavior.”
— Russell Ackoff, Ackoff’s Best
Evolution only moves forward. Rather than clinging to the past, we must step courageously into the emerging future.
Can you relate to this sense of strain? Of trying to make sense inside systems that are dissolving? Of navigating the pressure to stay productive while our inner compass spins? Of recognizing that “business as usual” is harming what we love most…and yet not knowing what else to do?
A Moment of Choice
This is a critical moment of choice. Do we soldier on with the status quo — maintaining an identity shaped for a world that no longer truly exists? Or, like the caterpillar, do we allow our current form to dissolve — trusting that something wiser, more adapted, and more beautiful is longing to emerge?
Such transformation can feel frightening. But it is not random.
“When the environment shifts and the system notices that it needs to change, it always changes in such a way that it remains consistent with itself…It will choose a path into the future that it believes is congruent with who it has been…It is the system’s need to maintain itself that may lead to it to become something new and different.”
— Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science
We’re not being asked to abandon who we are. We’re being asked to evolve in integrity with it.
The Invitation
This moment matters. Old forms ~ of identity, of leadership, of systems ~ are breaking down. In the face of so much uncertainty, it’s natural to want to cling to the familiar. To pour energy into preserving what we’ve known.
But rather than treating disorientation as failure, we can come to know it as a form of initiation. A threshold into the deeper story.
This is not abstract for me. It’s personal. I didn’t arrive at this work because I had answers. I arrived because the world didn’t make sense. Even as a child, I could feel the ache of contradiction ~ between what we say we value and how we live. And I’ve spent much of my life listening for what lies beneath that ache. Seeking the deeper patterns. The hidden coherence.
Now, I believe we are in a time of possibility as well as peril. A time when breakdown ~ if met with care ~ can become breakthrough.
But we must learn to listen again. To attune to the more compassionate world our hearts remember ~ even if we’ve never fully experienced it. To lean into the wisdom of lineages ~ both ancient and emerging ~ and become the kind of people who can midwife an epoch. This is the invitation. And you are not alone.
A Glimpse Ahead
This blog is part of a larger arc. In the next post, we’ll explore one of the new conditions of the world we're entering: the very nature of the change around us is changing.
But for now, breathe. Notice where this lands ~ in your body, your mind, your life.
How might the strain of straddling the world that was and the world that is coming into being be showing up in your life and your body?
When you feel the strain, is your tendency to revert to what was, or step more fully into what’s next? Whatever your tendency, can you hold it with warm regard rather than judgment?
May these ideas stir curiosity. May they help you make space for compassion. And may they help you remember: When your body feels the strain, there’s nothing wrong with you. And you are not alone. We’re in new territory. And together, we can learn how to move through it ~ wisely, bravely, and with integrity.
Wish your team or community could explore these ideas more deeply together?
I offer talks, interactive sessions, and tailored workshops to support groups in navigating these shifts with more clarity and care. Reach out here if you'd like to explore what's possible.