Page 7 - Cornwall Issue 4 2025
P. 7
HEALTH & WELLBEING
MAKING SENSE
OF CHANGE
FINDING MEANING IN LIFE’S TRANSITIONS
BY VANESSA CROUS, NARR ATIVE COUNSELLOR • PHOTO BY IVAN MULLER
ife has a way of shifting beneath our QUESTIONS TO REFLECT ON
feet. Sometimes change arrives with If you're going through a transition right now,
celebration in the form of graduations, consider these questions:
Lweddings, retirement. Other times, it shows • What story have I been telling myself about this
up quietly or painfully - a job loss, the end of a change?
relationship, the death of someone dear, or simply
the slow evolution of aging. Whether welcomed • Are there moments - however small - where I’ve
or unwelcome, transitions often leave us with responded with strength or wisdom?
questions: Who am I now? Where do I belong?
What remains of the life I knew, and what do I carry • What values are becoming clearer to me in this
forward?
time?
As a narrative counsellor, I walk alongside people
during these uncertain moments—not to “fix” • Who in my life has supported or witnessed my
growth?
anything, but to listen for meaning, possibility and
strength in their unfolding story.
• What kind of story do I want to live into next?
THE IN-BETWEEN SPACE
Transitions can feel disorienting because they often These questions aren’t meant to pressure you into
place us in what some call a “liminal space” - a quick answers, but to open gentle doorways of
threshold between what was and what will be. This curiosity.
space can feel empty, confusing, even lonely. But it
can also be fertile ground for reflection and change. A GENTLE REMINDER
In narrative counselling, we see these in-between Transitions can stir up grief, uncertainty and
times not as problems to be solved, but as rich longing, but they also hold within them the seeds
narrative moments—opportunities to pause, take of possibility. You are not “starting over”; you are
stock and consider which parts of your story you continuing, evolving. The next part of your story
want to carry forward, and which you may want to doesn’t need to be written all at once. It begins
leave behind. in small moments of noticing: the things that still
matter, the relationships that nourish you, the parts
RE-AUTHORING THE STORY of yourself you’re beginning to rediscover.
Each of us lives within a story - often shaped by
culture, family and early life experiences. These You don’t have to navigate this alone. Narrative
stories tell us who we are, what we should value counselling offers a safe, respectful space where
and how we’re meant to live. But sometimes these your voice is heard and honoured—and where your
inherited stories no longer serve us. story is treated with the care it deserves.
For example, someone moving into retirement You are the author. This chapter may be unfamiliar,
might struggle with the story that their worth was but it is yours to shape - with dignity, imagination
tied to their productivity. A person healing from and meaning.
divorce may carry a story that they have “failed”
or are “not lovable.” Narrative counselling helps “The person is not the problem. The problem is the
us gently question these dominant stories and problem.” – Michael White
explore hidden ones - stories of courage, loyalty,
resourcefulness and hope.
CONTACT DETAILS
When we begin to re-author our story, we don’t Tel: 082 324 9735
erase what’s come before - we reinterpret it in a www.vanessacrouscounselling.co.za
way that honours our resilience and opens up new Address: 414 Cliff Avenue, Waterkloof Ridge
paths.
Cornwall View • Issue 4 2025 5