From Life Transition to Life Transformation

Week of August 12, 2023

Are you facing an anticipated or unexpected ending, beginning, or loss? Is your identity shifting, falling away, or emerging? Does hope, faith, meaning, or purpose elude you? Major life transitions are often painful, anxious, or disorienting times. They also offer a doorway to healing, personal growth, and spiritual maturation. This program will explore the landscape of life transitions, the fertile soil they offer for transformation and growth, and how to embrace their unbidden gifts.

Entering the Threshold of a Life Transition
During a life transition we journey from the known to the unknown. We may be unable to see the way forward. This session will recognize transition as a potentially transformational threshold to navigate through on a personal spiritual path. We will also use story and metaphor to explore nature as a potent source of spiritual wisdom and guidance for responding to transitions.

Being in the Threshold: Listening Within for the Way Forward
When life as we have known it is disrupted, we are often quick to seek safety in a strategy or action plan that alleviates discomfort or fear. This session will address the wisdom of non-action during transitions – of waiting, listening within, and practicing receptivity in order to potentiate transformation. The art of discernment will be differentiated from decision-making as a tool for moving forward.

Loss, Grief, and Life Transitions
A visceral experience of loss and grief often accompanies a major life transition, especially a significant ending like divorce, illness or aging, or bereavement. Transitions that seem less significant can still evoke painful feelings. This session will identify the nature of grief, types of grief that might arise during a life transition, compassionate ways of being with our grief, and the special role of ritual and remembrance practices in grieving.

From Life Transition to Self-Transformation
Life transitions repeatedly invite us to consider and respond to central questions in the spiritual life: Who am I? Who will I become? How will I live? This final session will emphasize the centrality of self-surrender in transitions that become transformational. We will also discuss the intentional cultivation of key spiritual traits that allow us to respond to transitions with fuller grace for a fuller life.

Stephanie Ludwig, PhD, MDiv, is a recognized spiritual guide, educator, subject matter expert, and leader specializing in loss, grief, life transitions, and spiritual transformation. Her prior professional roles include director of spiritual wellness for a renowned integrative wellness resort company, executive director for a non-profit inspiring whole-person wellness for girls, spiritual community leader, college faculty, trauma prevention education program director, and crisis counselor. Dr. Ludwig holds a doctorate in transpersonal psychology and graduate training in theology and ministry. Currently, she lives in northern Arizona where she hikes, camps, backpacks and offers private spiritual guidance through www.drstephanieludwig.com.