Skip to main content
Center for Action and Contemplation

Your Guide to Navigating Life’s Changes with Spiritual Grounding 

Learn how contemplation helps us courageously embrace life’s expected and unexpected changes.
August 13th, 2024
Your Guide to Navigating Life’s Changes with Spiritual Grounding 

When we begin shifting into a new life phase, we can often feel confused and vulnerable. Yet, while often difficult and intimidating, major life events can also offer us deep learning and transformation. Whether you are facing an empty nest or becoming a parent, getting married or divorced, or dealing with illness and loss, contemplative practice can provide spiritual grounding while we navigate both planned and unplanned life challenges. 

As new life stages shift our priorities and identities, find your center amid major life changes with these free contemplative resources that keep you connected to who you really are — your True Self in God: 

The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) is an educational nonprofit sharing Christian contemplative wisdom and practices that support transformation and inspire loving action.  

Learn more about who we are and what we do—and sign up for our free monthly newsletter to get more contemplative resources delivered straight to your inbox. 

Discover Contemplative Resources to Help with Starting New Chapters 

Entering new phases in life like moving away from home, retiring, or becoming a parent, can be both exciting and daunting. A regular contemplative practice can help create the space for you to thoughtfully reflect on the path ahead and courageously step into a new stage of life. 

Explore Contemplative Practices for Hope and Healing While Dealing with Loss & Death 

Not all wounds can be healed with bandages, like the death of a child or loss of a friend. As CAC founder Richard Rohr has often said, “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.” Contemplative practices help us nurture compassion for the broken things of the world, finding compassion and sympathy for brokenness within ourselves along the way. 

Examine Contemplative Wisdom to Find Confidence in Relationship Changes 

We were made for love. Sometimes deep love means coming together, while other times it means letting go. In times of letting go, contemplative practice can help us learn to respond rather than react to change. Contemplative traditions invite new and deeper levels of consciousness, increasing our self-awareness, confidence, and connection to others. 

Find Contemplative Insights for Finding Hope While Managing Illness

We are all in need of healing. Illnesses and diseases often have us questioning what we once thought was a certainty, which only adds to our suffering. A daily contemplative practice, even just 15-20 minutes of silent meditation, can help us embrace change, reduce stress, offer emotional balance, and relieve anxiety by connecting us to the Divine presence that sustains all.  

Discover Contemplative Resources for Grounding During Major Life Changes

Are you anxiously facing an uncertain future? We often avoid lingering in liminal spaces, those threshold moments where life requires us to think and live in new ways. These spaces can often feel intimidating and confusing, but with regular contemplative practice you can find the courage and wisdom to embrace new chapters—like becoming a parent or losing a loved one—with an open mind and heart. 

CAC faculty member Dr. Barbara A. Holmes writes, “We live in a world saturated with the love and intentionality of an ever-present God, and we are not alone.” 

We hope these resources help you feel love in the challenging times, find God in suffering, and remind you that you are not — and never will be — alone. We invite you to share your stories of navigating life changes with us. 

Join Our Email Community

Stay up to date on the latest news and happenings from the Center for Action and Contemplation.