Earlier this week, I logged into the first session of Impart Therapy’s Transition Toolkit series, Skills for Anxiety, Change and Growth. I signed up because I’m in the middle of my own transition, months into stepping away from a decade-long career in communications. Some days the anxiety around it is loud enough that I wanted actual language for it, not just the feeling of it.
What happens in the brain during a transition
Deeya Sumra, the Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) who leads the series, started simply. A transition, she explained, is a period of change between one chapter of life and the next. It can be something we chose or something that landed on us. It can be exciting and hard at the same time.
For me, the hard part hasn’t been the decision itself, it’s been losing pieces of my old life I didn’t realize were holding me up, my career as part of my identity, the financial independence that came with it, the shape of a normal workday, and trading all of it for days that look nothing like what I was used to. Hearing Deeya share that transitions are simply hard, chosen or not, took some of the blame off me. That alone didn’t undo months of feeling this way, change like this takes time, but it gave me enough room to actually dial into the rest of the session instead of getting stuck defending myself against it.
She also walked us through what happens in the brain when the ground under us feels unsteady. When predictability, safety or control go missing, the amygdala, our brain’s fear and reaction centre, takes the wheel. The prefrontal cortex, the part of us capable of calm and clear thinking, gets pushed to the side. That’s the moment we snap at someone we love, or avoid the phone call we’ve been putting off for a week.
From there, she broke anxiety down into four parts: the thoughts running through our heads, the emotions underneath them, what shows up in the body, and how we end up behaving because of it. Sitting with my own patterns like this wasn’t always comfortable, but there was something steadying in it too, proof that what I’d been feeling had a shape, not just a weight. When she had us pause and map our own experience onto each of the four parts, mine came together faster than I expected. Here’s what surfaced for me:
- Thoughts: what if this pivot doesn’t work out, what if I’ve made the wrong call after ten years
- Emotions: fear, overwhelm, a short fuse (just ask my partner) on harder days
- Body: a racing heart before I hit submit on my university application, a tight chest when someone asks what I’m up to these days
- Behaviours: limiting social gatherings, numbing out with Netflix or a doomscroll instead of facing what’s next, looking for validation on choices I’ve already made
I recognized myself in all four before Deeya had even finished the list!
Understanding the Avoidance Cycle
The avoidance cycle explains why those patterns keep repeating: a situation sparks an anxious response, we avoid it, we get a rush of relief, and the anxiety comes back stronger the next time we face it, what she called intensification. I had a real example ready before she’d even finished explaining it. I put off updating my resume for weeks, telling myself I’d get to it once I felt more ready. Every time I avoided it, I felt that flood of relief. But the closer I got to actually needing it, the more that relief turned into dread, and doing it under pressure ended up harder than it would have been if I’d just started early. Avoidance and procrastination are still the two I recognize most in myself.
Deeya also drew a line that’s stuck with me since: productive concern versus excessive worry. It really comes down to what’s in your control and what isn’t, and whether your worry has a stopping point or just keeps spinning.
My own transition
There was a long stretch where I genuinely loved public relations and communications, the strategy, the storytelling, the brands I got to help build and the people I got to build them alongside. I don’t look back on those ten-plus years as time spent in the wrong place. But as I grew further into my career, I started noticing something quieter underneath the work I was already doing well, the parts I gravitated toward without being asked to: mentoring, coaching people earlier in their careers, helping someone find the words for what they actually wanted to say about themselves. The longer I sat with that pull, the harder it got to ignore.
Eventually I made the decision to pivot out of communications, and I’m now working toward a career in counselling psychology. I still half jokingly describe it as moving from branding for companies to branding for people, though I know that undersells it!
That decision came with a mortgage attached to my name and no guaranteed outcome waiting on the other side of it. I wouldn’t have taken the leap without a partner who believed I could do this before I fully believed it myself.
What makes this particular transition hard is that there’s no fixed end date here. A degree program has a start and finish. A career pivot doesn’t come with the same kind of map, and not knowing every roadblock in advance is its own particular flavour of uncomfortable.
How I’m coping
Naming the anxiety loop out loud has already made me more aware as I process all my feelings. A few things I’m leaning on:
- Taking deep, slow breaths when my chest tightens up
- A few seconds of pause before I respond instead of reacting on instinct
- Addressing things one by one and sorting out what’s actually within my control from what isn’t
In addition, Deeya sent us home with an anxiety tracking journal to help us keep track of situations that make us anxious: the thought, the emotion, the body response and the behaviour that followed.
And truthfully, I haven’t begun journaling yet. I’m still early in this transition, and I still catch myself avoiding the harder conversations. But I understand the loop now, and understanding it has loosened its grip on me a little.
Something to ask yourself
If you’re in the middle of your own transition, whatever shape it takes, these are worth asking yourself:
- Thoughts: what’s running through your head right now, on repeat?
- Emotions: what feelings come up most for you, and when?
- Body: where do you feel it first, and what does it actually feel like?
- Behaviours: what are you doing, or avoiding, because of it?
- Is what you’re worrying about something you can act on, with a clear next step, or is it a “what if” spiral that doesn’t have a stopping point?
I hope naming what’s happening in your own mind and body gives you some of that same relief. It has for me.
About Deeya Sumra
At Impart Therapy, Deeya Sumra works with teens and young adults experiencing anxiety, helping them develop practical, evidence-based skills to manage stress and build resilience. If any of these signs sound familiar, we’re here to help support both you and your teen. To book a free meet and greet with Deeya, please visit: Book Online | Impart Therapy