The lovely summer is behind us. Those of us who are parents are emerging from the hectic back-to-school season with its emotional highs and lows and are now moving towards the soon approaching Holiday Season. If you relocated for a new job, you most likely moved over the summer.

The last couple of months have been a time of leaving and arriving, of saying goodbye and welcome.

I find the rituals and celebrations we create around change and transitions fascinating. We call them rites of passage. Here in the US we mark the end of summer with our Labor Day barbeques. On the north-western coast of my native Finland we celebrate the Venezian Evening during the last weekend of August with bonfires and fireworks. Coming of age rituals are common in most cultures, as are weddings and funeral traditions. These rituals help us transition from one stage of life to another.

Losing a job or changing jobs are also significant events, as is relocating. They both entail leaving behind the familiar, our colleagues, family and friends. Many of us feel lost in the transition and question who we are or who we are becoming. Having relocated to the US now over 16 years ago I look back at my first few years living in NY City and recall my ups and downs of adjusting to a new relationship, a new city and a new country.

As a young woman in my late 20s I arrived with two large suitcases, a backpack and a desire to follow in my ancestors footsteps into the new world.

Anton, the brother of my grandfather left the homestead at age 17 to seek his luck in the new world. He traveled by boat and train and eventually settled on Vancouver Island in Canada. There was no email or Skype to keep in touch with family and friends, and he did not speak English. I often wondered how he survived on his own at such a young age. But he did well, married and had his own family.

While travel today is much easier and technology allows us to maintain relationships with our loved ones far away it is still important to acknowledge the emotional toll of moving.

Rites of passages serve an important emotional function. They help us separate from the past and prepare us for the future. If you have lost or left a job or relocated globally, create a rite of passage for yourself and your family. Have a celebration before you leave. Go out for dinner with your colleagues. Visit your favorite place. Plant a tree. Create an art project. Whatever is meaningful for you.

Allow yourself the time to miss and grieve your earlier life; your friends, the house, the climate, the job, your office, and perhaps your daily routine. Then begin the processes of creating a new life. Explore your opportunities; stay open to your thoughts, feelings and dreams and, explore.