The Turning: How to Find Your Bearings When Life Is Changing
There’s a particular kind of energy when one season begins turning toward another. You can feel it before the calendar officially announces anything. It’s like your spidey-senses just… know.
The light shifts. The evenings arrive a little earlier. The air has more contrast in it. The things that felt perfectly natural a few weeks ago start requiring adjustment.
Suddenly, the rhythm of summer doesn’t quite fit.
Maybe you’re moving your morning walk to a different time because the sun isn’t where it used to be. Maybe the calendar has filled back up because school has started or work has changed pace as vacation schedules wrap. You’re spending more time indoors and thinking about routines again. There can be a familiar back-to-school feeling in the air, even if it has been decades since anyone bought you a fresh box of pencils. The warm allure of pumpkin spice starts to tug on you more than the refreshing taste of fruit infused sweaty drinks.
Something is beginning. Something else is ending. And you’re somewhere in between. I call this terrain The Turning.
The strange little stretch between what was and what’s next
Early fall is one of those times when change becomes particularly visible. Nature is literally doing it right in front of us. The light changes, temperatures begin to shift and dip, plants change their priorities, even animals respond to different cues. The whole landscape starts reorganizing itself around what is becoming true now.
We do this too. Because as much as we like to imagine ourselves operating independently of the natural world, we have bodies that notice changes in light and temperature and rhythm and environment. Our inner world notices what is happening around us, even when we aren’t consciously paying attention to it.
But the seasonal change happening outside us can also coincide with all kinds of change happening inside our lives.
Your kiddo starts school.
That huge project ends.
Your spouse’s new job begins.
Important relationships change.
It could happen when you come home from a trip and realize your normal routine doesn’t feel quite so normal anymore. Something you were excited about three months ago has lost some of its pull. Something you weren’t ready for before suddenly feels possible. There are a number of ways that you can notice the shift, but not quite put your finger on exactly what’s happening until you pause and get curious about it.
You feel a little something that makes you realize that…
you’re tired, but in a different sort of way
you’re bored, like you need a spark of something new
you want something you haven’t before
you there is something that needs to GO, that you don’t want anymore
None of these things necessarily arrive with a dramatic announcement. Sometimes change looks like standing in your kitchen on a Tuesday thinking, Why does everything feel slightly different lately?
That’s The Turning too.
Change can feel exciting and disorienting at the same time
We tend to talk about change as though we should be able to decide how we feel about it, right now, with no disclaimers. When we talk with a friend, we are quick to categorize it in a neat box without room to express they dynamics of how it really feels.
Good change. Bad change.
Exciting change. Difficult change.
A fresh start. A loss.
Expected change. Change that comes as a surprise.
But most actual transitions are much messier than that. You can be thrilled about what’s beginning and exhausted by what it requires. You can probably name a time when you knew something needed to end and still feel sad when it does. I’ve recently felt this when we were talking about tearing out our front flower bed so that we can start with a clean slate now that certain plants have dominated the landscape and we can address the drainage against the house. I realized I feel excited about attempting some Pinterest-worthy flower garden flowers, but also a big sad about possibly losing what we can’t transplant and exhausted by the effort and expense to make it happen.
You can crave a new rhythm and feel irritated by the awkwardness of establishing it. You can feel relief, grief, excitement, nervousness, possibility, and fatigue within approximately seventeen minutes. Your nervous system responds in ways that tries to protect you based on the capacity you have for ‘all the things’.
Change creates contrast and takes away the comfort of ‘the ordinary’, when things were ‘fine’ even if they weren’t great. What used to happen automatically suddenly requires thought and what used to fit doesn’t fit quite the same way. But it doesn’t mean we do nothing.
The map you were using worked beautifully for the terrain you were in, but now the trail has changed. And that doesn’t necessarily mean you need a better map. Sometimes you need a compass.
Your Glow is part of the information
One of the ways we orient is by noticing our Glow. Glow is the language I use for the sensory information your life is already giving you and is attuned to what your nervous system is telling you it can bear. It’s like an intuitive check-in framework that you can use to create your own map of what is going on in your inner world as it responds and reacts to the reality you are living in by asking questions that draw out clarity through curiosity versus jumping to naming what’s wrong.
It serves as a compass to help you notice things about the facets of your Glow.
How alive do you feel in your body?
How clear is your mind?
How supported do you feel in your relationships?
What is happening with your creativity?
Your sense of purpose?
Your environment?
Your resources?
Your connection to something larger than yourself?
These aren’t scores you need to improve, they are dynamics you can sense and can use to inform your actions based on the amount of capacity you are feeling. Your Glow is not something to maximize, it’s something to notice, because your current conditions contain information. You might notice that something which looked exciting on paper consistently leaves you depleted. Or that your mind feels scattered every time you try to force a decision you don’t actually have enough information to make yet.
When you are contemplating a career change or feeling stuck, you might notice yourself becoming more animated every time a certain idea comes up or how much easier it is to hear yourself after an hour outside. Your body and your life are constantly offering information about the terrain you’re navigating. Glow helps you notice it.
And your Glow Compass helps you understand where that information might be pointing. Human Orientation helps you ask… Given what I’m noticing and understanding, how do I want to respond?
This is where Human Orientation comes in
Human Orientation is a practice I’ve been developing around a fairly simple idea: Before we decide what to do, it helps to notice where we actually are.
Sounds simple until you realize how conditioned we are to avoid taking that moment. We’re often encouraged to move very quickly from discomfort to action.
Something feels off? Fix it.
Feeling stuck? Make a plan.
Want something different? Set a goal, any goal!
But there’s an important piece that comes before all of that… Orientation. When you’re hiking and realize you’re not quite sure where you are, charging farther down the trail isn’t necessarily the most helpful response. Imagine a time that you have felt like you lost your bearings out in nature (or even the parking lot).
You look around. You notice the terrain. You check your bearings.
You figure out what information you actually have. And then you decide how to move.
Human Orientation brings that same simple practice into everyday life, whether you are dealing with a hectic morning trying to get out the door, a meeting where the boss is throwing more work on your plate or you are wandering the house after a long day telling yourself you should go to bed, but you finally have a moment of quiet. Notice → Understand → Respond → Reorient.
Not once. Again and again, because we are not static creatures living in static circumstances. We change, and not just in an aging or life season way. We are navigating change in a very dynamic, living way all the time.
Our capacity changes. Our roles change. Our relationships, environments, seasons change… the terrain is always changing within us and around us. And what supported us beautifully in one season may not be what we need in another.
What is this season telling you about your capacity?
There are seasons outside us and seasons within us
The natural seasons give us a particularly useful way to understand this. Winter doesn’t ask the same thing of the landscape that summer does. Spring has its own work. Fall has its own work. Just like the classic song by the Byrds, there is a season for everything. I remember learning this song for a camp talent show growing up and I felt the truth of lyrics even back then because of course there is a season for everything. There are times for restoration and returning, times for tending and establishing, times for expansion and reclaiming. And times for discernment, contribution, and deciding what gets carried forward.
Human lives have seasons like this too, but they don’t always line up neatly with the calendar. You can be in the middle of July and experiencing a very wintery chapter of your life. You can find yourself beginning again in November. Your very life filled life can experience enormous expansion while the natural world around you is slowing down.
And you can encounter the terrain of The Turning anytime life begins changing shape around you. A move, a diagnosis, a promotion, a graduation. Change can look like a breakup, a birth, a child leaving home or something along the lines of a creative awakening, a new responsibility. It can spark from a realization that you can’t keep doing something the way you’ve always done it. Those are all terrains of change.
The calendar season isn’t a rule telling you what you should be experiencing, it’s a layer of context. And because we are living beings inside a living world, that context matters too.
So what does it mean to have your bearings?
Having your bearings does not mean knowing exactly where you’re going and I think that distinction matters. We put enormous pressure on ourselves to have answers during times of change. It can feel like an interrogation, pressuring us to take action without a real sense of what really matters, our priorities, and our capacity for making it all happen.
What’s the plan?
What’s next?
What are you going to do?
What do you want?
Where is this going?
Sometimes you simply don’t know yet. Or you don’t have the bandwidth or emotional calm for decide. Orientation offers another possibility.
Instead of asking Where is all of this taking me? You might begin with Where am I within it? That question is often much more answerable and gives you a very different feeling answer.
You may notice that you need to recover before you reach for what’s next. Or that you don’t need a giant life overhaul. You simply need a few reliable rhythms while everything else finds its shape. You may discover that underneath the uncertainty, something is actually coming alive. There’s a curiosity there… fueled with the energy, possibility and desire you’re ready to follow.
Or you may recognize that the new season cannot comfortably hold everything you carried through the last one. Something needs to become lighter, simpler, different, or complete in order to truly move forward.
The important distinction here is that none of these orientations is better than another. They are bearings guiding you toward the path that supports you and helps you navigate the current terrain. And having a bearing can change the experience of navigating uncertain terrain. You may still not know exactly where the trail leads, but you know a little more about how you want to walk it to make the progress sustainable.
The particular invitation of The Turning
Life already asks you a lot of tough questions, expecting solution-based answers. The Turning is not asking you to have the next season figured out. It’s asking you to notice what has changed and be curious about what comes up.
What no longer fits quite the way it did?
What needs a different rhythm?
What are you tired of carrying?
What are you curious about?
Where do you need more room?
What feels newly possible?
What helps you feel like yourself while so much else is moving?
There is a slight slowing in this season, but there can also be tremendous forward energy. That’s part of what makes this terrain so interesting. It’s crisp and a bit spicy. There’s contrast between the days and things start coming into focus. You might be able to see the edges of something you couldn’t quite make out before. And just because things feel a little more clear, you don’t have to immediately turn that clarity into a plan.
✦ Sometimes the next oriented step is restoration.
✦ Sometimes it’s establishing a rhythm.
✦ Sometimes it’s following a spark.
✦ Sometimes it’s deciding what you’re no longer willing to carry in quite the same way.
The question underneath all of them is What would help me maintain or regain my bearings while life is changing?
Find your bearings in The Turning
I created The Turning Orientation Compass as a way to explore that question. It’s a short seasonal assessment that helps you notice how you’re experiencing the terrain of change and discover which of four Compass Directions may be asking to lead right now-
Remember. Tend. Reclaim. Offer.
You’ll also discover What Travels With You, a supporting orientation that can help you navigate this particular stretch of trail. And you’ll receive a personalized Field Report designed to help you understand what your results might look like in your actual life, with observations, reflections, a Field Practice, and an invitation to experiment with what an oriented response could look like for you.
It isn’t a personality test. There is no ideal result. And your Compass Direction isn’t something you need to become. It is simply a snapshot of today’s orientation within the terrain you’re navigating.
Because sometimes, in a season of change, the most helpful thing isn’t knowing exactly where you’re going. It’s being able to look around and say I know a little more about where I am.
And from there, you can find your next bearing.
✦
The seasonal Field Report shares the insights you can use to help navigate ‘all the things’ and use your efforts more effectively based on the season you are in.
Stephanie Rose is the founder of Firefly Scout and creator of the Human Orientation practice. Through observation, pattern recognition, and self-authorship, she helps people become more accurate interpreters of themselves and their lives so they can navigate change, growth, and "all the things" with greater clarity, capacity, and self-trust.
If you enjoy exploring a different way of seeing, join the Firefly Scout newsletter or download your free personalized Field Report to start noticing what your life may already be trying to show you.
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Feeling stuck or burned out by change? Learn how to find your bearings, understand the terrain you’re navigating, and move through seasons of change with more clarity and confidence.