I didn’t know it then, but I was in a transition

July 26, 1996

I was standing by the window of a third-floor condo at the southeast corner of Yonge and Davisville, in midtown Toronto. The summer sun poured in, too bright for my jet-lagged eyes. Outside, traffic hummed, and pedestrians strolled as if nothing had changed — but everything had. For me, the world had just split in two. We had just arrived in Canada.

A young woman, tall and athletic in a tennis outfit, had welcomed us and shown us around the apartment my father had rented. She asked what I wanted to study. I mumbled “Art Direction.” She smiled and pointed out the ad agency across the street and told me about OCAD. Then she left.

And I went to the window.

I was 23 years old, and though I had longed for this new life — had pushed for it — I felt an unexpected grief rising. “Is this my new home?” I wondered. “I’ll never get used to this place.” Which surprised me.

I was the one who wanted to leave Iran. The one who didn’t want the life laid out for me. I wanted choice, adventure, freedom. But as I stood at that window, I didn’t feel free. I felt hollow, caught in the invisible middle between a life I had just left and one that hadn’t begun yet.

 I didn’t know it then, but I was in a transition.

Not just a move. Not just a change of country or career path. A transition. And no one had told me that those two are different.

I had assumed that once you make a decision, book the ticket, and get into school... that’s it. You move on.

What I didn’t know was how loudly my nervous system would protest. How unfamiliar everything would feel. How I’d question my belonging. How the parts of me that had felt solid would dissolve — and how slowly they’d rebuild.

If someone had told me back then that transitions are a process, not just a moment… That you have to grieve what ended, pause in the fog, and re-learn how to hear your own voice in a new context… I would’ve done things differently.

But life has been my teacher.

Through decades of living across continents, building and leaving careers, relationships, identities, and cities behind, I’ve moved through the kind of changes that fracture and rebuild you.

And through therapy, deep reflection, my training in psychotherapy and developmental coaching, and the support of many mentors, I’ve come to understand that

change is the event…

And transition is the internal journey.

It disorients our nervous system, yes. But it also offers a profound chance for recalibration, growth, and evolution — if we know how to navigate it. And that’s the thing:

We are not meant to go through big life changes alone.

We’re not meant to “figure it out” in isolation. We need guides. We need maps. We need to be held while we reimagine.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have had friends, family, guides, and my own grit to get me through life changes and the transformative power of transitions. And I feel even luckier to be able to support others move through them too.

With love,

Mahshad