Military Transition or Lifestyle Adjustment - Part 1

This article is primarily for our newsletter readers
and is published on our primary blog.

Recently I ran across a civilian gentleman that asked,"How can
military transitioning can be complicated for a person
leaving the military?" Basically, he wanted for me to
define the term military transition to where he could
relate and understand the process. "It's just changing jobs,
right?", he asked.

Before I began explaining the process, I made sure that
he realized that the transitioning process we were addressing
could apply to police officers, firemen, EMTs, and any other
job that has it's own lingo and culture.

In addition to the above occupations, a person who serves as
a teacher, a professor, a lawyer, an attorney, a public
official and every occupation you can think of goes through
some sort of transition once they no longer perform their
primary occupation.

We inevitably become like the people we work with and adopt
the thought process for that particular field. This thought
process then becomes a part of our lifestyle, identity,
vocabulary, and reasoning. The power of the thought process
and transformation of our identity in relation to our occupation
is underestimated. To put this theory to test, imagine taking a
30 day vacation and see how you feel by the 21st day. How
would your first day back to work feel? It takes 21 days
to acquire a habit.

Once we separate ourselves from that occupation, our identity
is tested. Once we leave or change occupations, we undergo a
self-discovery phase with our identities and experience an
identity transformation process. There are several events that
can kick off a self-discovery process within us (i.e. new job,
new location, new career field, marriage, divorce, etc).

A transition is just that, a transition. Ask any retiree
(civilian or military). Amazingly so, a person leaving the
military not only goes through a transition with an occupation,
they go through a lifestyle transition as well. Then if the
person relocates, there's a host of transitions occurring
simultaneously. All of these changes can cause sensory overload
if the person isn't prepared for the transition. (Hopefully this
analogy helps someone who hasn't served in the military understand
that military transitioning is a combination of transitions).

Over the past year, I'm really glad to see more supporting
websites and businesses online for military transitioning.
There was a need and the need for military transitioning
services will increase with our brothers and sisters returning
from war. Some say there isn't a war going on. If there is
blood being shed, that spells war to me and many others.


Food For Thought:


The lifesyle transition a military person experiences is the
transition of living within the civilian society. Our military
communities are very close knit. Imagine a base or post being a
little city with a population of approximately 2000 or less. A world
within a world, a microcosm in a macrocosm.

Transitions to Ponder:

1. Going from elementary school to junior high.
2. Going from junior high school to high school.
3. Going from high school to college.
4. Graduating from college and entering the work force.
5. Leaving home.
6. Going from single to married.
7. Going from childless to having children.
8. Watching children grow up.
9. Watching children leave home.
10. Going from a full nest to an empty nest.
11. Retirement, etc...
12. Leaving the earth plane as a living being.

Transitions are inevitable. That's living life.

Stay tuned for more on transitioning and it's affects. If
there is a topic you'd like incorporated within this subject,
please write to vetsinmotion@aol.com.


Until Next Time,


Johnetta Matthews
Veterans In Motion

This article may be circulated as long as it includes:

This article was written by Johnetta Matthews, Military
Transition Coach,Veterans In Motion, www.veteransinmotion.com
and www.veteransinmotion.blogspot.com .