At first glance, it’s not obvious why stories of transition should present any problems at all. Almost by definition, they contain the stuff of good narrative. The protagonist is you, of course, and what’s at stake is your career. Only love, life, and death could be more important. And transition is always about a world that’s changed. You’ve been let go, or you’ve somehow decided your life doesn’t work anymore. Perhaps you’ve reached an event or insight that represents a point of no return — one that marks the end of the second act, a period of frustration and struggle. In the end, if all goes well, you resolve the tension and uncertainty and embark on a new chapter in your life or career.

These emotions are fed by our story. They do not care if the story we are telling is true, helpful, or even based on what is currently happening. Any veteran storyteller will agree that there’s no substitute for practicing in front of a live audience. Tell and retell your story; rework it like a draft of an epic novel until the ‘right’ version emerges. Sophie named her daughter Manon. As she grew older, Manon looked nothing like her parents. She had darker skin and frizzy hair, and the neighbors started to gossip about her origins. It was only when Sophie’s husband accused her of giving birth to another man’s baby that she went for paternity tests and discovered that her husband was right (sort of). The baby, then aged 10, wasn’t his, but she wasn’t Sophie’s either. She belonged to another set of parents, who had been raising Sophie’s biological daughter in a town several miles away. Why in any case is continuity thought to be a virtue? Is a coherent life always desirable? Alasdair MacIntyre, an endurantist par excellence, argues that ‘the unity of a human life is the unity of a narrative quest,’ but not all narratives are unified, and many of them are none the worse for that. In literary criticism, the dogma that a work of art must constitute a unity runs from Aristotle to the present day, excluding all manner of vitalising conflicts and contradictions. In aesthetics as in politics, unity is something of a fetish. One reason we want to regard our life histories as all of a piece is a fear of loss and damage. To be self-contained, with no loose ends or rough edges, is to be less susceptible to death.The baby spent her first days in an incubator under artificial light and was returned to her mother four days later. Unbeknownst to Sophie, it wasn’t her baby. It was another 4-day-old with jaundice. The nurse had switched the babies by accident.

June’s experience teaches a final, important lesson about undergoing change. We use stories to reinvent ourselves. June, like Sam, was able to change because she created a story that justified and motivated such a dramatic shift.

Why you need a story

The distinction between fiction and myth is discussed by Frank Kermode in The Sense of an Ending. Roughly speaking, myths are fictions that have forgotten their own fictional status and taken themselves as real. Liberals like Brooks fear being imprisoned by their own convictions, or oppressed by the convictions of others; the ideal is a cognitive dissonance in which one believes and disbelieves at the same time, rather as Othello thinks Desdemona is faithful to him and also thinks she is not. Since reading fiction involves a suspension of disbelief, it can show us how to attain this dual consciousness. The problem is to distinguish this ambivalence from simply feeling lukewarm about something. Can you really be passionately anti-sexist yet sceptical of your own anti-sexism? If you can carve your own path to the grave these days, it is because grand narratives of this kind have crumbled and can no longer constrain you. Journeys are no longer communal but self-tailored, more like hitchhiking than a coach tour. They are no longer mass products but for the most part embarked on alone. The world has ceased to be story-shaped, which means that you can make your life up as you go along. You can own it, just as you can own a boutique. As the current cliché has it, everybody is different, a proposition which if true would spell the end of ethics, sociology, demography, medical science and a good deal besides. Can you think of an early part of your life when you felt strong and happy? If you had a difficult childhood or other challenges that prevent you from identifying this starting place, try thinking of the time when you were still cradled in the womb. For starters, keep in mind that, in a job interview, you don’t establish trust by getting everything off your chest or being completely open about the several possibilities you are exploring. In the early stages of a transition, it is important to identify and actively consider multiple alternatives. But you will explore each option, or type of option, with a different audience. RSPCA Preston: Dog found dumped and emaciated among the animals looking for a home in time for Christmas

You can practice your stories in many ways and places. Any context will do in which you’re likely to be asked, ‘What can you tell me about yourself?’ or ‘What do you do?’ or ‘What are you looking for?’. Start with family and friends. You may even want to designate a small circle of friends and close colleagues, with their knowledge and approval, your ‘board of advisers’. Their primary function would be to listen and react again and again to your evolving stories. Many of the people we have studied or coached through the transition process have created or joined networking groups for just this purpose.

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Once upon a time, an 18-year-old Frenchwoman named Sophie Serrano gave birth to a baby girl, who suffered from neonatal jaundice.