Transitioning Through Life with Rosie

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Rosie Tyler is launching her first session on Navigating Transitions Through Life.

This group is for anyone. Why? Because everyone will have to go through transitions throughout their lives!

Rosie plans to focus this group around the transitions that often come with aging. There are a lot of transitions at this time.

“Especially when you retire -- you are transitioning from working to not working. Transitioning often to a loss of income compared to a healthy paycheck. We deal with health challenges and issues too as we age.”

This group will share tips and strategies for how to manage these transitions and adjust your life from perhaps how it was before to a new routine. Perhaps that will include watching how you eat or adding some exercise to your routine.

Many other transitions as we age can be difficult as well for example transitioning through relocation after decades in one place or losing a spouse. The group will talk about some of these transitions from perhaps being a married person to being single or having empty nest syndrome after caring for a whole family and transitioning to being on your own.

“All of those are changes. The one thing we can be certain of in life is changes. This group will discuss how to manage those changes and transitions.”

Every ending has a beginning. And living in a culture where youth is often idolized, we don't always address the challenges many older people face daily. Not everyone grows old gracefully. There are many changes, transitions, and adjustments the elderly must address.

“The biggest hindrances is there is no format for these transitions. Plus people don’t talk about it. However, it isn’t that grandma and grandpa are in the back now things have changed. Even growing old is different than what our ancestors considered old. Now many older people are still working or caregiving for their parents while facing challenges with different illnesses or other issues.”

Like it or not, everyone will be transitioning at different points for the rest of our lives. It is important to address these transitions opening and approach them differently depending on each season of our lives according to Rosie.  

At every stage, we lay down one thing and pick up something new

Many people get bogged down with hanging on to the old, because that is how things were ‘always done.’

“Now we choose to do something different.”

Rosie thinks the coronavirus really showed us that there are major transitions happening and we choose how we deal with them. From how we adjust to something as monuments as the pandemic to deaths and other tragedies. It is from this point that people need to make a conscious choice to decide:

1. Where do I go from here?
2. What do I want?
3. How can I make moves toward what I want?
4. How will I redefine who I am based on this experience?

How well a person manages these transitions will define their quality of life as they go forward, so it is not something to look at lightly.

Rosie, herself, has been experiencing many transitions over the past couple of years. She relocated from her home of 40 some years to be closer to her children which involved a shift in states.

“All the guidelines here are different from California. My background was in healthcare but even the health care systems here are different.”

To make this transition, she went from working full-time to retirement. She also left behind her friends, her support system, her favorite restaurants, and so much more. The transition includes going from one big healthy check to social security and watching her finances more carefully due to this loss in regular income. All these transitions started for Rosie when she had to deal with the death of her two younger brothers in the span of a month.

“I didn’t know where to put that grief and the job gave me only 3 days of bereavement. So, I had to rethink what I really wanted in life. I knew that 3 days was not enough time for me to process this transition.”

Rosie’s transition landed her with a new beginning in Las Vegas, a place full of different cultures! Her participation in the YMCA led her to find GetSetUp classes and she has been enjoying that expanded community ever since.

“Everyone here in Vegas is from some other part of the country, so you learn different ways of doing things and thinking. You learn to own your own and tolerate other people’s thinking processes and beliefs.”

Rosie knows it doesn’t matter if you are 65 or 85 you still have life to live so she thinks you need to spend it doing what you want to do.

“It doesn’t matter your age you are still living. What do you want tomorrow or next year? What quality of life do you want? Age is just a small portion of life and living. You determine what you want no matter what age you are!”

So Rosie wants to see peers sharing from a generation that doesn’t normally share how they feel so that they can learn together. She feels this group will help those needing support have a good group to go to and lean on when they need it, whether that’s day one of the transition or months into it.

“GetSetUp is a great idea because it gives seniors a way to connect and learn new information that they can then put to use!”

So join Rosie and the GetSetUp community to discuss your transitions and learn from others as they transition too!