Editor’s Note: This article is the third in a four-part series.

Passage is the time of adapting to change. It is the usually longest of the four stages of transition, and the only rule about its timeline is that it shouldn’t be rushed because it takes as long as it takes (i.e., years, which nobody wants to hear, by the way). It’s an unsettled time when important things have been done, yet important questions remain unanswered. Questions like: Where do I say I want to live and why do I say that? Does the plan I created before, during or after my event occurred serve what I want and need from my life today? Who am I now, anyway?

The extraordinary thing about passage is that it’s the time when the most profound work can be done, yet it’s also the time when it’s least likely that work will actually get done. Why? Because passage is easily overlooked. Put simply, most advisors don’t know what they’re looking at when they see someone in passage, whether that person is struggling with the stage or not. And that’s because the precipitating event happened well over a year prior. Sometimes several years. Sometimes more. The advisor doesn’t connect the client’s behavior to the event.

Anticipation as a stage is easily identified because the event hasn’t actually occurred. Nevertheless, as I explained in the first article of this series, there is plenty of work to be done during anticipation that will set the stage for the event when it transpires. Meanwhile, ending is when most financial advisors are in their element because they’ve been extensively trained (I trust) in the various technical components of major life events. Advisors have more checklists for ending than any other stage of transition.

However, after all the doing has been done for someone whose spouse has passed, for example, and any initial shock has worn off, and intense emotions are subsiding, and the throngs of people who were around to support your client have turned their attention back to their own lives, your client is left to experience the waves of emotions that come and go for years while also figuring out who they want to be moving forward. There are rich lessons to be learned from discomfort and from the opportunity to rebuild identity. Do you have a structure for this time of tension between who the client was and who they are becoming?

Sure, you likely created a plan for moving forward, which creates a sense of motion toward some kind of goal. The client might even feel potential building. But that potential can only blossom if certain supportive elements are in place.

What Can You Do For Your Clients During Passage?

• As always, provide a safe space for them to experience whatever is arising. The only way through all of the emotions and rebuilding of passage, and toward clarity and enthusiasm for the creation of the new normal, is to experience it. People who avoid it or deny it or rush through it aren’t doing themselves any favors; the only thing they achieve is prolonging their passage. Why? Because the important discussions and self-discovery of passage don’t go away.

Also, clients in passage are often inundated with advice from friends, and part of your safe space is drafting agreements or statements that help the client with their boundaries and assure loved ones that they are working with an advisor.

• Normalize their experience. Normalizing whatever they are experiencing is always a part of cultivating well-being and a feeling of safety. And referring them to support groups is helpful as well, because peer support is normalizing.

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