The Seven Life Transition Stages

Seven Stages Of Life

As we go through our lives, we transition through seven separate stages of manifestation of who we are as beings in human bodies. Life Transition Stages are the punctuation points of the personality’s journey of growth.

There are seven Life Transition stages. These are:

Birth. Transition from being non-physical to becoming physically incarnate. 

Separation. Childhood transition to acknowledge being separate from others, especially one’s parents. Aka  the ”terrible twos”.

Individuation. Recognition of being an adult and fully making one’s own choices.

Self-Realization. Struggle to find one’s identity, break up family patterns, and uncover the Self. Aka “mid-life”.

Fulfillment. Review of life’s accomplishments and release of limiting beliefs.

Review. Recognition of death approaching and the resulting changes.

Death. The death process itself.

Discovery of Self

These processes are all concerned with the discovery of self. These discoveries and transitions are not imposed, but rather chosen. They are not a lesson plan but instead focus on learning, first about uniqueness and distinctness, and then about transcending physical identity and limits. 

A Journey of the Self

From the view of Life Transitions, a lifetime is a journey first of differentiation (the first three transitions), and then expanding the Self past physical limitations (the last three transitions). It is a journey from the self to the Self.

All the Transitions are processes to manifest different phases of who you are. 

Overview of How the Transitions Flow Within a Lifetime

Birth. At birth, you’re in a body. You have to learn detachment from who you were to connect to your body—that’s a part of who you are. 

Separation. The second Life Transition is detachment and separation from those who surround and nurture you. 

Individuation. The third Life Transition is a further separation, moving into your own autonomy as an individual in the society you live in. 

Self Realization. The fourth Life Transition is a separation energetically—not so much physically—which again leaves you to manifest more of who you are, and more independent from the role you learned to play in your family. 

Fulfillment, Review, and Death. The remaining transitions bring more of your non-physical nature. Each time you move into a different Transition, you change your perception as you begin to manifest more of who you are until, through the seventh Life Transition, you are left with nothing but who you are—pure energy.

Transitions Are Expressed As a Spectrum

Each Transition is a spectrum from expansive to contracted. The expansive end of the spectrum is the expression of the energy of each Transition with freedom and unrestrained ease. 

The contracted end of the spectrum involves resistance to the natural discoveries and movements of energy. The underlying insights and perceptions are always available, but a contracted awareness may block them from the surface. Such blockages can create difficulties and diseases, or at the minimum a lack of pleasant ease and joy in life in the areas it affects.

Birth

+Vitality -Survival

Primal, Basic, Instinctive

This transition is the most primal transition: that of entering the body and anchoring oneself to the physical plane. 

It is the time when basic pleasure and appreciation of the physical body is learned. Instincts that come from basic humanness are integrated into the lowest levels of your identity. The first (root) chakra and instinctive center are inhabited. 

Vitality: Anchoring to the Body

The expansive pole of the Birth Transition is vitality, which is the anchoring of yourself to the body, fully inhabiting it, and committing to experiencing all that life has to offer on a primal, physical level. 

Or…Survival: Dragged Along By Life

The contracted expression is survival: being dragged along by physical needs and fears without involvement or investment of your basic energy. Life is not truly lived, but only survived.

Long Term Effects of Being In the Survival Pole

Many physical diseases later in life come from the residual cellular effects of resisting the intrinsic aliveness that comes from the complete surrender of being in a body with all that entails. 

Signs of Not Completing Birth Transition In Vitality

Other signs of not completing the first Life Transition in the positive pole of vitality include a drastic lack of vitality and withdrawal from desire for connections of any sort. Studying children from whom all nurturing is removed after birth will show many examples of this more contracted expression. 

Ways To ”Re-Do” Birth Transition In Vitality

Movement to the expansive pole from the contracted involves learning self nurturing and appreciating the beauty of the physicality of your existence. 

Enjoy the vibrant colors around you, taste the sensual sounds that permeate your eardrums every moment, and rest in the comfort that exists of having something supporting you physically, underneath you, in every moment.

Separation

+Identity -Non-Differentiation (Solipsism)

The First Two Years Of Life Are Dreamlike

During the first two years of life there is a growing attachment to being in the physical body, but awareness has not been fully anchored in it. The reality of astral guides—from the dream worlds you always inhabit—can make as much sense at that age as what is physically seen by the eyes. 

Creation of a Separate Identity 

The Childhood Transition is the creation of a separate emotional and mental identity, which is a further anchoring to the physical plane centered around the second chakra. 

It is a transition to operating with the knowledge that your desires, worldview, and emotional reactions are not that of your parents and providers. This transition normally starts around age two.

”Terrible Twos” Arise From Having Overly-Bonded Parents

What is known as the “terrible twos” can be an expression of this transition. With the rampant loneliness in Western cultures, parents can have a tendency to overly bond with the natural un-differentiation of an infant beyond the usefulness of this bonding to the child.

When Parents Resist the Child’s Separation Process

When the strength of this bond is clung to beyond its necessity, the parent resists the child’s natural letting go that is part of this transition. The manifestation of this struggle is frustration and sometimes outward rebellion that has been labelled the ”terrible twos”.

The Child Becomes a Wholly Separate Being

On a deeper level this expression is a declaration of uniqueness and distinction. There is now a recognition that while the child is still physically dependent on providers, they are no longer emotionally and energetically dependent. They have become more of a separate identity—more whole within themselves.

The Ideal Environment For Separation

The ideal environment for this transition is a warm and comforting family where differences are appreciated, and desires are valued and incorporated as an exciting part of the family.

Long Term Psychological Effects of An Incomplete Separation Transition

Incomplete aspects of this transition can manifest in mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, or in general depression and lackluster disconnection from desires. The result will largely depend on the nature of the interaction in childhood that in some way denied a distinct identity. 

Long Term Emotional Effects of An Incomplete Separation Transition 

Often this results in being very “thin skinned” and reactive because of the lack of differentiation between self and others. Relating or Teaching Perspective souls, with their enhanced sensitivity, can become even more reactive because of their extra awareness and openness to energetic phenomena. 

More Long Term Emotional Effects 

Other signs of issues include lack of self-knowledge. This can include one’s own basic desires, the awareness of where an emotional reaction originated, and how to impact immediate surroundings on a basic level. Desire for approval (or in some cases, rejection or any clear reaction) will be strong. 

There is often a lack of ability to restrict others’ energy, emotion, and desires from permeating the self. This can create both enhanced ability and instability with regards to interactions with others.

Not Uncommon To Not Have Completed the Separation Transition 

Approximately 30% of adults in Western cultures have largely restricted themselves to the energy contracted pole with the second transition. This doesn’t mean they are fully in the contracted pole. It is always a spectrum. Very few adults are always in the positive or expansive pole. All that this means is their basic emotional self is not fully differentiated, which in Western culture is “normal”. 

Effects of An Expansive Separation Transition

• More expansive manifestations include:
• finding enjoyment in having an impact on others from a place of fullness
• pursuing one’s own desires that are not echoes of others
• having fair arguments
• feeling boundary emotions such as appropriate anger
• being at peace with the sensation that something else—a person or an inanimate object—is completely “not me”

A regular meditation of perceiving others as separate and “not me” will help transmute this energy into its more expansive nature. 

Comparisons to Quintessence Life Perspectives

[read about The Quintessence here] It is no accident that the perceptual motto of the Structuring Perspective is “me and not me”, whereas the motto of the Surviving Perspective is “me and other me’s”. Manifesting Soul Perspective is directly analogous to the Life Transitions. Life Transitions mark the passage between world perceptual views and this includes which Soul Perspective is manifested.

Individuation

+Differentiation (Independence) -Separation

Separation From Parental Dynamic

This Transition deals with a complete separation from the parental dynamic. Whereas the Separation Transition deals with emotional and energetic separation, this transition includes the developments of interpersonal power and an identity within society. In other words, it is the transition to adulthood.

Unique & Individual Expression of Personality

During this Transition, the moving center and third chakra becomes fully manifested. There is an increased desire to make an impact upon the world. This is greater than simply becoming a productive member of society and living on one’s own. There is desire to prove one’s uniqueness, to make an outward mark and to show one’s power and influence.

Taking Space In the World

It is a taking up of space. This can be in any number of ways, but will always focus on the unique and individual expression of an outward personality, which can be in very non-conformist ways and even antisocially. It thus lays the groundwork for the later manifestation of essence and the allowing of deeper levels of Self to blossom forth without struggle.

Associated With Rebellion, Yet Rebellion Only If Parents Stand In the Way

There are many examples of the archetype of this transition, such as in popular movies such as The Breakfast Club and high school sports dramas. While this Transition is often associated with “teenage rebellion”, rebellion only occurs when the surrounding parental figures exert themselves in a way that makes independence difficult. 

This exertion need not be overt. Any time a parental figure has not fully completed their own Individuation Transition, they will automatically and unconsciously place energetic barriers to the Transition of others going through the same transition. Movement in others, especially children, always triggers movement, reevaluation and an invitation for introspection in revisiting past choices.

Effects of An Expansive Individuation Transition 

Examples of expansive, “positive” manifestation through this transition occur when authority is perceived as nonthreatening. There is an independence of desire, thought, and action, where there is no automatic obedience nor automatic rebellion. There is simply the putting forward of a distinctive outer self, irrespective of others.

Some Cultures Celebrate With Ceremonies

In cultures with less overall loneliness and less instinctive holding onto children to assuage that loneliness, this transition can be seamless and is often marked with a “coming of age” or initiation ceremony. 

This is not a graduation ceremony where responsibilities and powers are granted after the ceremony, but rather a joyful recognition of a successful transition into one’s own personal power. In such cultures, responsibility and freedom is almost always given when asked to children and adolescents, as there is the knowledge that children rarely consciously ask for more than they can handle. 

Western Societies Often Make the Individuation Transition Difficult

The marked desire to restrict freedom of the under-aged in Western society is a strong manifestation of leftover issues in the cultural identity regarding this Transition. 

Power is sought by obtaining power over others rather than an instinctive authority from bringing forth the distinctive self. This power over others is from the lack of differentiation (desiring power to make up for a feeling of lack of power) rather than the honest desire to have an influence, which is very positive.

Helpful Qualities That Aid In The Individuation Transition

What helps most in navigating this Transition is a place to bring the distinctive Self. This is not an atmosphere of absolute safety, which has its own element of control and giving over to the abstract authority of creating a “safe space”. Rather, it is a very marked space for creativity, where any emotion can be brought, there is room for conflict, and there are healthy examples of navigating the conflict in such a way that respects each other’s autonomy.

The Best Support Comes From Those Who Successfully Completed Individuation

As with all of the Transitions, support is best given by those who have fully transited their own into the expansive polarity of a particular Transition. Again, no matter how well wishing they are, the aid of those with left over remnants of their own Transition will resist others’ Transitions if they are not willing to revisit their own choices.

Much like the stages of a caterpillar to pupa to glorious butterfly, we traverse through stages of life in order to become more of Who We Are.

Self-Realization

+Self Realization -Resignation

Transition From Being Who Parents Taught You To Be, To Becoming Who You Are

In the Individuation Transition there is the bringing forward of the distinctive self, which itself is the product of imprinting—the core beliefs taught to the personality during the first 20 years of life. 

This includes what is called the “family ikon”, which is a role that is played within the family and by extension within society at large. If this role—and the imprinted education about self giving to the incarnating soul is at odds with the deeper energy from the essence of self, then dissonance and stress can be a result. There may be a feeling of “I am not me” or “I am not home, wherever I am physically”. 

In Self-Realization The Focus Becomes ”Who Am I?”

It is the Self-Realization Transition that creates the focus to become truly “who I am.” It is this question, “who am I?” that is the hallmark of this transition.

A Deeply Introspective Process

This process of discovering True Self is often—but not necessarily—a deeply introspective process. Where parents have a recognition of what underlying energies the child brings, and they adapt their parenting interactions to this, what is developed and imprinted in the child will be very close to the underlying essence energy. The seeds that have been planted were picked to match.

The Life Project Becomes a Focus

Often during this Transition, but not necessarily only at this time, the individual focuses on their Life Project [read about Life Project here]. This is the direction the soul planned to investigate when creating the structure of the lifetime. 

Additional Energy Is Freed To Assist With Life Project

The reason the Life Project is a focus at this time is because the additional energy of essence manifestation creates a geyser of energy which can help focus intention and the creative potential of the lifetime. 

Seeds Of Life Project May Begin In Childhood

However, this is not in any way a rule or restriction. It is not wholly uncommon for the focus on the Life Project to start in early childhood. At that time, decisions leading the personality to the task will tend to be automatic. For example, there might be a compulsion to investigate music, to work collaboratively, or to study interactions between people. These are examples of expressions of an underlying life task. 

This Transition, the manifestation of essence, will bring a conscious recognition that these choices at a younger age were in reality a deep expression of Self.

Comparison To Quintessence Life Perspective

This Transition relates to the Relating Perspective in that it is the beginning of an opening to greater possibilities, where realizations occur that the Self is far greater than what has been known and is connected to everything else in the universe. Relationships acquire more depth. Creativity can become more marked. [Read about Relating Perspective here]

Not Truly a ”Midlife Crisis”

The ”midlife crisis” has been thought to be a difficult and traumatic encounter, where careers are changed and relationships can end. This is largely untrue. A universal expression of essence manifestation is fluidity and effortless movement in life. 

Struggling Against Inner Urges Creates Difficulties In Self-Realization Transition

Difficulty only results when the urges and echoes from within are struggled against. The expansive manifestation of this Transition is Self-Realization, which can also be called “conscious creation”.

Conscious creation by definition is the manifestation of essence. The converse is also valid: conscious creation is near impossible without the inclusion of essence [read about essence here].

Often Begins At Around Age 35

This Transition will often start at approximately age 35 but may take years or decades to complete. Given the format of most careers there is almost an innate resistance in society to the reevaluation that is a hallmark of this Transition. This may result in the person making radical choices—even if radical choices are themselves rare, they are always a possibility. 

More Possibilities Does Not Always Lead to Radical Choices

Manifestation of all of essence will always result in a greater awareness of possibilities. However, essence will almost always be satisfied with maintaining the same relationship or the same career, albeit from a conscious choice and inclusion of its greater possibilities.

Fulfillment

+Appreciation -Evaluation

Begins When Realize Majority of Life Has Already Happened

The fifth Transition is triggered by the recognition that most of the life has already been lived. There is awareness that while death is not imminent, it is inevitable. 

Triggers An Inward Life Review

This triggers a life review, where choices of the life lived thus far may relax into a greater surrender and acceptance. This corresponds loosely to the Teaching Perspective in The Quintessence. [Read about Teaching Perspective here]

A Time For Reflection 

The Transition starts with a “going-within”. This is a reflection upon one’s life and one’s accomplishments, balancing this with what the fragment had aspired to accomplish during the lifetime.

Often there is a reflection upon soul agreements, karma, etc along with past-life associations and lessons that have come to bear during the present life. This Transition is a time for reflection, not action.

A Choice To Embrace Or Resist

The choice at this point is whether to embrace the changes that are occurring or to resist them further. These changes may be societal (i.e. retirement), with the physical body (i.e. a physical degradation) or with emotions and hormonal changes.  

Moving Into Elderhood

A greater detachment is invited which involves moving in to the intrinsic knowledge that comes with being a senior citizen: elderhood. Because Western culture largely dismisses wisdom that comes from the elderly, there can be a lack of cultural support for embracing this Transition and the inherent power that comes from surrendering to it.  

Historically, people entering their “senior” years were revered and honored. Their gifts were recognized and they were regarded as important functioning members of their communities.

Can Be Isolating, Or Trigger Greater Extraversion

In the beginning of this process there can be a level of isolation because of the review involved in the process. However, this Transition can also—in its more expansive manifestation—create what looks like a more extraverted personality. This is because there are fewer attachments to identity and societal roles.  

Brings Freedom and Confidence

There can be more freedom, more acting without restraint in harmony with essence, and more living the archetype of the “wise teacher”. Confidence comes from a greater awareness of the connections to essence. 

Appreciation For All Things Physical

Even if the physical body decays and dies this connection will never be lost. You can see how this requires relaxation away from societal image of what “being a person” means. It is the appreciation of all that being physical means that leads one to the detachment and power that comes from this Transition.

Review

+Catharsis -Capitulation

Preparation For Not Requiring a Body

The sixth Life Transition prepares the person physically to no longer require the body for operation. This requires further acceptance and relaxation into and away from the body. 

Detachment and Acceptance

It is humorously ironic that it takes you a lifetime to be comfortable with your body, and it is often only in this Life Transition that complete detachment and acceptance occurs. 

After expansively finishing the fifth Life Transition you finally accept this body that you have, and then you move into the sixth Life Transition where it’s time to give it up again. Commonly it manifests as physical deterioration to prepare one for moving away from the body. 

Physical aspects aside, the sixth Life Transition is at its fundamental level a complete relaxation into Self. 

Greater Awareness of Self, Yet Physical Deterioration

Why does this manifest as physical deterioration? Self is not the body, but is rather connected to the physical plane and the body. This complete relaxation into Self is about getting ready to accept the self as the Self that is detached from the body. You connect to this Self through every dream you have, but the sixth Transition is about bringing the greater awareness into the perception you live through, even if it means a great detachment from the body. 

Some Aspects Can Begin During 5th Transition

Understand that part of the acceptance of the body that comes from the fifth Life Transition could be manifesting elements of deterioration that give you something more to work on in terms of accepting yourself.  

Changing Awareness 

The sixth Life Transition, then, is both more removed and further than self-acceptance. It tends to move you into a frame of awareness in which you become more ready to separate from your body and separate from the attachment of “this body is me, is who I am”. You develop a deeper sense of realization that you are your inner soul, your essence within you. 

Identify More As Essence, Less As Personality

Your sense of identity is now largely as the essence, rather than as a being who has a connection to something greater than you that is also you. That is who you are and the body is akin to a piece of clothing that you wear for particular lifetime.

More Time On Astral Plane

When a person starts the sixth Transition, they start sleeping noticeably more and spend more astral time than before, as a general principle. Because you are less attached to the body, you spending more of your time on the astral plane.  

This process can take several years or it can happen very quickly, depending on how attached one is already to their body and many other factors. 

What Is Perceived As Dementia Can Be a Part

What is viewed culturally and societally as dementia is something that can arise in either the fifth Life Transition or the sixth. It is more typical within the sixth Life Transition, because that is again part of separation from the body. What really occurs during what is perceived as dementia is simply that the person—on an essence level—moves away from their strong connection with the body and explores other projects and other ways of being.  

Fears May Arise Due To Shifting Awareness States

Fears may emerge during this process which have other repercussions. The person can move in and out of those states, which can be very perplexing to others and rather confusing for the individual themselves. The individual finds cognitive moments interspersed with moments of experiencing another reality. This can cause trouble relating the one to the other.  

Fears like this also can occur within the context of the fifth Life Transition. In those cases it is generally a life choice to experience other realities, to experience reality as themselves as an earlier person in that lifetime, or to experience more astral level interaction.

Death

+Rebirth -Death

Release Connection To Body

This transition is the dying process itself. The connection to the physical body is transcended and released and there is a final physical surrender to the greater self, the essence that has always being there. 

Experience May Depend On One’s Beliefs About Death

Depending on the resistance to this process, there can be absolute elation or incredible pain. The human body—as well as the bodies of all species on the physical plane—are built so that detachment and disconnection is facilitated during trauma or when death is imminent. However, any belief that one must cling to the body at all costs will block this intrinsic knowledge. 

Adjustment in Perception

The sixth Transition requires a great adjustment in perception. There is a large difference in perceptual input between the senses of your body on the physical plane and the expanded inputs that come with your greater Self on the astral plane. This adjustment that begins during the sixth Transition grows to a rushing pace during the death process itself. 

Aspects May Cause Anxiety

To those unfamiliar with out of body experiences this part of the Transition can be replete with anxiety. Assistance can be given by surrounding those in the active dying process with centered hospice workers who support the emotional, physical, and mental release necessary. 

Helpful support is largely not through intellectual counseling, but rather through symbolic teachings and right brain activity such as through archetypes, shamanism, and song. 

Sacred And Powerful To Witness

Being in the presence of the rush of energy that comes through death can be a great support to those living. It fuels their own Transitions and helps connect in a greater fashion to their own greater Self that is always present within them, transcending, beyond the body throughout all periods of life.

Ends On Astral Plane

While this Transition begins on the physical plane, it ends on the astral plane  with the help of one’s guides and teachers. There is always assistance and support. 

Life Review Begins

After the Transition is complete, the life review begins. This takes a significant amount of ‘time’ on the astral plane. (Time does not function in a similar manner in that reality as on the physical plane)

Channeled Commentary

While these Transitions are presented as linear, the process is experienced linearly only in extremely rare cases. Moving to another Transition is not like moving from grade three to grade four in elementary school, for example. 

Moving through the Transitions is always an evolving process, and there is continual review and opportunity for new choices and expanding perspectives at any point of life. You can always choose to go back and look at something again. 

You are never restricted by past choices. You also can choose to stop the progress of a Life Transition for a time and pick it up later if you want—or choose not to. Life Transitions are not mandatory—nothing about soul choices and experiences is. But there are consequences for not completing a Life Transition, just as there are consequences to any choice.

You can also compete the Transition in another lifetime. Interestingly enough, a thought that “one is done” with a Transition or an particular Perspective [read about Perspectives here] is almost always a sign that there is some contracted energy that could be further released. In other words, self-congratulation about completing a specific Transition almost certainly means that the Transition was not completed.

Again, there is no absolute linear progression. You, and all your choices, are multi-dimensional and are subject only to the rules that you yourself create through your beliefs. 

You must not always finish something before starting something else. There is always room to move back. There is always room to stop, to choose to not do something. 

Likely you know someone who chronically does not finish things. They are still living their lives and doing okay, but perhaps you feel that there is something incomplete for that person. That is a choice. You can feel it, others can feel it, and perhaps they can feel it also, but they’ve made that choice, and it is fundamentally perfect as it is.

Typically, moving through a particular Life Transition will bring things up from a prior Life Transition. This includes experiences that were either left undone or that you would like to look at again for a variety of reasons. Not necessarily because it was undone, but perhaps it just correlates or helps fill in the picture for something in your life now, or helps illuminate something for you. Perhaps your essence likes that issue and likes dwelling at it, in which case you’ll provide yourself with opportunities to do so time and again.  

Again, it is rare that anyone “one-hundred percent completes” any particular Transition. There is always a spectrum and always connection to past Transitions, much like you are connected to your past at all times via the present moment.