Anatomy of Transition: Your Introduction to this Limited Series
The body tells the truth about change before the mind has words for it: sleep alters, appetite wobbles, attention narrows or scatters. That's because transition isn't just an event; its a process with its own anatomy.
Something ends.
There's a middle that asks more of us than we first imagined.
And eventually, if we make room for the work, something new emerges.
Light
Dark
Physiologically, transitions leave fingerprints in the body—on our cortisol patterns, our autonomic nervous system, our daily rhythms and digestion, even our immune response. I know because I'm writing this from the middle of my own transition—a season where something that once felt steady has dissolved.
It didn't happen all at once, but in quiet, undeniable stages. My sleep told the story before my words did. Tossing, turning, and ruminating when I would typically fall into an easy slumber. Waking long before the 5:00 a.m. alarm clock—alert and agitated, aware of a dissonance. My body asking for different rhythms, different boundaries, a different kind of honesty. I could feel discord in my chest, like a bolus of food that could not be broken down to move through my system—a physical response to a situation that no longer matched my values, no matter how I tried to digest it.
I don't share this for drama, but instead because I know many others are in their own versions of this middle place. I'm not speaking about transition from the outside. I'm living inside it with you. And sometimes it feels dark, muddy, and impossible to trudge through.
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
Anatomy of Transition
This new weekly series, Anatomy of Transition, is my invitation to move through that process together.
Over the coming eight weeks, we'll explore how bodies and stories adapt to change. Sometimes we step toward change by choice. Sometimes it arrives through circumstances beyond us. And sometimes it comes simply because time has moved us along—a season of life closing, a role or relationship reaching its natural edge, a body entering a new phase, or a mismatch between our lives and our values that finally demands attention. However it begins, we find ourselves in the middle of a process we didn't design but still have to live.
Together, we'll practice metabolizing that process—gently—so we can move through, rather than around it. The body asks us to digest change: to break down what no longer fits, absorb what's true, and release the rest. Only then do we have the capacity to meet what’s next with a little more clarity and a little less overwhelm.
I'll offer one steady rhythm each week: a brief offering on the body and mind, an opportunity to orient your own story, and a simple practice to anchor regulation. Along the way, we'll lean on a few long-standing maps of transition—models that have helped people make sense of endings, thresholds, and beginnings for decades—not as dogma, but as scaffolding for our own lived experience. Think of this series as a guided passage through the in-between, provided by someone who is also sitting in bardo—a Tibetan buddhist word for an in-between state—companionship for your system while it rewires for what's next. Hopefully, we can name the tender parts, honor the pauses, resist the pressure to "move on" and instead practice how to move through—gently, honestly, and in alignment.
By the end, I hope we'll have our own working "anatomy of a transition"—a way of understanding change in our bodies, our stories, and our lives that resonates for you now and in any future transitions.
The many faces of change
For now, let's consider some of the different kinds of transitions we encounter through life.
Health — diagnosis or recovery, autoimmune flares, surgery and rehabilitation, menopause and perimenopause, postpartum, grief and healing after illness.
Roles & responsibilities — career changes, retirement, job loss, becoming a caregiver, empty nesting, becoming a student again, leadership shifts.
Identity & belonging — claiming a neurodivergent or disability identity, spiritual or faith shifts, acknowledging or naming sexuality or gender identity, and evolving cultural or community identities.
Relationships — beginnings and endings of partnerships or friendships, changes in relationship structure or style, recalibrating boundaries, estrangement and repair, and changes in family structure.
Place & environment — moving homes, migration, displacement, returning after time away, changing work settings.
Seasonal & circadian — light changes, travel across time zones, shift work, holidays, the solstice's invitation to reset rhythm.
Developmental or life stage — adolescence to adulthood, young adulthood to midlife, midlife to later life, spiritual maturation.
Grief & loss — bereavement, the loss of health or ability, the loss of a role or community; the ways we oscillate between sorrow and restoration.
Collective & organizational — changes in institutions or teams, cultural upheaval, economic shifts that affect our nervous systems and choices.
Integrity-driven changes — moments when alignment asks us to step away from what isn't healthy, with clarity and without disparagement.
(You may find yourself in more than one of these. Most of us are.)
If you'd like, grab a notebook or open a new document on your computer. Notice which of these transitions feels most alive for you right now and write them down, in your own words. You can return to this same page throughout the series to respond to prompts, jot down notes, or capture any reflections that arise. It's a simple way to honor your own intervals as we move through this work together.
“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know”
How this series will unfold
Each week, you'll receive one piece in your inbox—an invitation rather than an assignment. I'll take one existing model of transition, explore what it reveals about the body and mind, and then turn gently toward our own stories with an invitation to reflect. I'll be working with these same questions and practices alongside you, from inside my own transition. You won't need to keep up, catch up, or do it "right." My intention is that, somewhere along the way, one of these letters lands at the right moment and helps you feel more accompanied in whatever transition you're in.
A word about hope
Hope here is not forced optimism. It's the quiet confidence that bodies are designed to adapt when given support, that stories can be both felt and rewritten without erasing what was true, and that integrity, even when it asks for hard change, is a form of care. It also lives in the collective: when we know we're not the only ones navigating transitions, the nervous system doesn't have to hold the whole weight alone. Being witnessed—however quietly—can soften the internal landscape and make room for something new to grow.
If you're at a threshold—visible or private—this series is for you. Let's learn the anatomy of a transition and practice metabolizing change together, one week at a time.
Warmly,
P.S. If you know someone who is also navigating a transition, feel free to forward this and invite them to subscribe at andreanakayama.com. And if you’d like to share any of your own writing or reflections as we go, you’re welcome to hit “reply” or email me at scribe@andreanakayama.com
