Print List Price: | CDN$ 25.99 |
Kindle Price: | CDN$ 13.99 Save CDN$ 12.00 (46%) |
includes free international wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet | |
Sold by: | Hachette Book Group Digital, Inc. This price was set by the publisher. |

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer – no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera, scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
The Way Of Transition: Embracing Life's Most Difficult Moments Kindle Edition
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDa Capo Lifelong Books
- Publication dateApril 4 2007
- File size1895 KB
Product description
About the Author
From Amazon
Because Bridges weaves his personal story into the narrative he comes off as a wizened sage rather than a cocky aficionado. "Change can come at any time, but transition comes along when one chapter of your life is over and another is waiting in the wings to make its entrance," he begins. "Needless to say it is impossible to imagine a new chapter is starting when your wife's death has just closed down what feels like your whole life. You simply cannot imagine a new chapter...." Overall, this is a book that offers an abundance of insights without faltering into self-help clichés or specific how-to advice. Instead, Bridges examines the events that bring about transition (marriage, death, change of vocation, tragedy, and crisis) and why it's so important to fully experience these transitions and how they offer opportunities for closure as well as launch pads for enormous personal growth. Readers of The Way of Transition will find an author who manages to be humble, accessible, and highly intelligent as he weaves the writings of Tolstoy, Herman Hesse, Emily Dickinson, Carl Jung, and Anäaut;is Nin into his personal reflections. --Gail Hudson
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.Product details
- ASIN : B0010NZKR4
- Publisher : Da Capo Lifelong Books; 1st edition (April 4 2007)
- Language : English
- File size : 1895 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 252 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 073820529X
- Best Sellers Rank: #326,076 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #65 in Counselling Reference (Kindle Store)
- #256 in Counselling Reference (Books)
- #294 in Applied Psychology (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

William Bridges is an internationally known speaker, author, and consultant who advises individuals and organizations in how to deal productively with change. His ten books include an expanded third edition of his best-seller, Managing Transitions (2009), and the updated second edition of Transitions (2004), which together have sold over one million copies. Before that he published The Way of Transition (2000), a partly autobiographical study of coming to terms with profound changes in his own life and transforming them into times of self-renewal. He published Creating You & Co., a handbook for creating a work-life that capitalizes on today's frequent and disruptive changes, and the ground-breaking Jobshift.
For three decades, he has guided thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations through the maze of the transitions that accompany change. He focuses on the Transition, or psychological reorientation, people must go through to come to terms with changes in their lives. His three-phase model of Endings, Neutral Zone and New Beginnings is widely known. The professional seminars that he launched in 1988 have now certified more than 5,000 managers, trainers and consultants worldwide to conduct Transition Management programs. His later work has focused on bringing the principles of Transition Management into the non-profit world. He has been a frequent keynote speaker at conferences and corporate meetings in the United States and abroad.
Educated originally in the humanities at Harvard, Columbia, and Brown Universities, he was (until his own career change in 1974) a professor of American Literature at Mills College, Oakland, CA. He is a past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology. The Wall Street Journal listed him as one of the top ten independent executive development presenters in America.
Customers who bought this item also bought
- Introducing the Old Testament: A Short Guide to Its History and MessageTremper Longman IIIKindle Edition
Customer reviews
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from Canada
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Those attempting to deal with big transitions in their lives are likely to find this book comforting and helpful. I did. But don't pick it up if you're looking for easy answers, clever techniques, or lists of things to do to turn your life around. As the author himself puts it, the "way" in the book's title is meant to describe a path, not a technique. So his approach is more descriptive than prescriptive. He wants to help you understand what you're going through but doesn't presume to have the answers. He leaves it up to you to figure out what to do.
Bridges' main point is a fairly simple one: that the rootless, confusing transition period one undergoes following a death in the family, divorce, career change or other transformative event should be embraced, not avoided or evaded. These difficult periods of transition, he argues, are precisely the times when we are most likely to be creative and open to inspiration. He illuminates this deceptively simple message with stories from his own life, especially how he dealt with his late wife's battle with cancer. He also sprinkles in lots of poignant quotes from others to help get the point across.
At times, the book borders on the spiritual. There is an underlying assumption that each of us has a sort of personal spiritual quest buried within us and that the purpose of our lives - and all those painful transitions - is to somehow coax out this latent quest and bring us a little closer to enlightenment. Most people who read self-help stuff would probably accept that assumption. But those whose temperament and tastes are more clinical than spiritual might find this short volume a little too warm and fuzzy.
It is difficult to imagine him giving the world a more honest, touching, and thoughtful gift.
Top reviews from other countries

I'm a Bridges fan. "Transitions" has helped me through some trying times. Bridges definitely has a spiritual approach in "The Way of Transition." His academic background also shows. His exercises usually involve educational situations: imagining you're in a class or writing chapters in a book. This may not appeal to those who didn't like school. It so happens that I have a distinctly spiritual outlook and that I loved school, so these weren't issues for me. For me they were strengths.
I greatly appreciate the distinctions he makes--between change and transition (others have noted this) and between decisions and choices, among others that are very valuable. I love his re-telling of "The Wizard of Oz" as the archetypal life "journey." I find his wit refreshing. I find his raw honesty compelling.
I would recommend this book, and I already have. I will read it more than once in my lifetime.
My caveat involves an omission, not a commission. In his chapter, "Finding Myself in the Neutral Zone" he describes (SPOILER ALERT) his emergence from that zone by finding a new love, his current wife. Don't get me wrong--I think that Bridges deserves every happiness! I understand that what I find missing may simply not be his book. No one can be everything to everyone. I confess, though, that when he describes discovering a new love in a woman 18 years his junior and that he's surprised, I think something like, "Well, perhaps Bridges finds this experience unpredictable; to me it seems nearly inevitable." That men in their 60s finding women in the 40s to be attractive companions is a documented cultural reality. It's not anywhere near unusual. And, again, don't get me wrong--these people deserve every happiness and it's lovely that they found one another whatever their ages! Whether or not their union is a common cultural reality doesn't cancel out their individual transitions and their happy ending.
My issue comes with the fact that Bridges no where (unless I missed it!) addresses that such a new beginning would be unlikely, to say the least, for a woman of 63. His second wife originally approached him. How many 45-year-old men would approach a 63-year-woman?
I know from reading the other reviews that a number of widows have found his book very supportive, and I'm not surprised. And the current U.S. political situation in which it's so evident that the female experience has been consistently ignored or dismissed (by both men and some women) may have made me more sensitive than I otherwise would have been. Many of my widowed or divorced friends in their 50s through 80s have told me that they've given up on having love in their lives. The qualifying men are looking for women 20 years (or more) their junior, or for "nurses." Furthermore, married women of their acquaintance find them threatening and frequently make sure not to include them socially.
Ironically, if Bridges weren't so perceptive a witness of his own and others' processes, I wouldn't expect him to comment on this reality. So, as I said, it's an omission, but perhaps not his to remedy.
I'm grateful that Bridges decided to share his journey, including the setbacks, the emotional pain, and the misguided thinking. He's a courageous man.
(p.s. I never catch all the typos.)
