Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons on Identity After a Big Change

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Space for Life.

This is the first episode of season eight, which is hard for me to fathom.

When I started this many years back, I don't think in my wildest dreams I would have considered that we'd be doing eight seasons.

of Space for Life.

And it's kind of part of the story of this episode.

For the last couple of summers, I've decided to take a sabbatical from the live episodes of Space for Life and do greatest hits because there's so many good ones to come back to.

Well, inevitably, in taking a sabbatical, it causes you to step back and think, well, is this the year that I will transition away from this? How do I feel about this? And you begin to ask yourself questions.

So in the midst of this past summer's sabbatical, I came across the book Encore by Elizabeth Selinka Parsons, who is my special guest today.

And this is one of those episodes that I read the book and went, oh, if I could only have her as a guest on Space for Life.

Basically because I need my own counseling in this area of transitions.

But I was so taken by just the depth and the nuance that she brought in her book that I think is so important for us.

Her framing of encore is around the subject of retirement and As she and I spoke earlier a few weeks back, we realized that basically all of life is transitions.

It's transitions into parenthood.

It's transitions into emptiness.

It's transitions into seasons of grief, of career changes, all sorts of transitions.

And they are all hard.

They all involve moving from a known place to an unknown place.

And I think that's where Elizabeth specializes as she has helped people now for a long time figure out how do we do that well? How do we not overly stumble in that difficult place of transition that life constantly throws at us.

So I am so excited to have Elizabeth on board for our first episode of Season 8.

Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining me in this conversation.