Finding Joy in the Transition: How Telling Your Own Story Can Heal You
“Sometimes the story we need isn’t the one we tell the world—it’s the one we finally tell ourselves.”
I used to believe that transitions were deserts. Dry, uncertain places where you just had to keep walking until you reached the next oasis—preferably with a new title, a new email signature, a new reason to feel worthy again.
But I’ve come to see transitions differently.
Now I know: they’re not deserts. They’re gardens.
Unplanted at first, maybe. Or full of overgrowth and weeds. But with the right story—your story—they can become sacred soil.
What if joy is something you cultivate in the waiting, not just something you experience once you “arrive”?
Joy in the In-Between
Too often, we think joy has to be deserved. Like we need a resolved plotline or a finished chapter to celebrate ourselves.
But joy isn’t a reward.
It’s a spiritual right.
It’s also a form of resistance.
Especially for those of us who’ve been taught—explicitly or silently—that our value only shows up when we’re producing, achieving, giving, or performing. For Black folks. For queer folks. For women. For anyone who’s had to earn rest, or prove belonging, or suppress truth to keep the peace.
So let me say this clearly:
You are allowed to feel joy even in the middle of uncertainty.
You are allowed to feel joy when the offer hasn’t come through.
When the dream is delayed.
When the healing isn’t linear.
When you’re still figuring out what healing even looks like.
You are allowed to be both unfinished and worthy.
What Narrative Medicine Taught Me
I’ve had to re-learn how to sit with myself in the “middle chapters.” To stop fast-forwarding through the discomfort or narrating my life like it’s already complete.
And that’s where I discovered the healing power of narrative medicine.
In the clinical world, narrative medicine is used to center patients’ stories as part of the healing process. But outside of hospitals, it has power too.
It taught me that your story is not just an archive—it’s an intervention.
Telling the truth about where you are and how you feel isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom.
It’s an act of self-honoring.
It’s how we stop bleeding silently.
It’s how we stitch together meaning from the fragments of disruption.
When I started writing again—freely, not performatively—I started to remember the parts of myself I had buried to be “marketable,” “resilient,” “professional.”
And slowly, I started to feel whole again.
Not because the circumstances changed. But because I changed in them.
The Lie of Resolution
There’s a lie many of us inherit: that your story only matters once you’ve won. That vulnerability is only safe once you’re back on your feet. That the in-between is embarrassing.
But here’s what I’m learning:
The transition itself is part of your testimony.
And joy can live inside it, not just after it.
Sometimes your own voice is the medicine you’ve been waiting on.
A Prompt for the Transition
If you’re in the middle of something right now—an undone career move, a fragile relationship, a healing process that keeps stalling—try this:
Write down what you’re afraid to admit.
Not to the world. Just to yourself. Be raw. Be honest. Be unedited.Then write down what you’re proud of.
Not the things that go on a résumé. But the quiet things. Like the fact that you didn’t give up. Or that you chose rest over self-betrayal.Now ask yourself: what part of this story could I start loving, even now?
You might find that the very thing you’re tempted to rush through is trying to teach you who you really are.
Final Thought
You don’t need a bow on your life to find beauty in it.
Transitions will always come. Sometimes forced, sometimes chosen. But if you give yourself permission to feel, narrate, and celebrate in the meantime—you’ll learn something precious:
That the joy you were waiting for may have been waiting on you to tell the truth.
So write the story. Speak the truth.
Not for applause.
Not for proof.
But for the healing.
Let your story be your medicine.
You deserve that much.