on trusting when it's time to pivot
sometimes i wonder why we feel as though we’ve failed at something if we decide to choose differently or decide to begin again. or when you realize something you once wanted, is no longer what you want. something you thought would work out, suddenly doesn’t. and it can feel like a sudden eruption in plans or how you thought a chapter of your life would work out.
it is funny how change is something that we cannot seem to predict. even if it is planned, we never really know how something is going to feel until we are in it, living the experience. sometimes life has a nonchalant way of redirecting us, even when we have no clue where we are going. as if we had pictured out perfectly how a season of life was going to look, just to be surprised by how inaccurate our own vision was. life is funny like that.
the thing i’ve struggled with is accepting that it is okay to pivot. it is okay to change the plan, to change your mind, or to realize that something you once wanted, doesn’t seem to fit in the way you once believed that it would. and i find that the internal battle of clinging onto something just because you think you should, or because you thought this is what life should look like, seems to only do more harm than good. when we grip onto the outcome, or holding onto the hope that life should pan out a certain way, is when we turn against our own inner knowing in the process.
one thing that is for certain is that our intuition, our body, never lies. somehow, it always knows. it knows when something is misaligned. it knows when it is time to move on. it knows when it is time to pivot. a quote i read once said something along the lines of, we usually always know what is best for us. the rest is simply just negotiating with fear. fear has a way of telling us what we should do, or maybe we should make it work, force things to happen to avoid change or conflict. and even though temporarily, it might feel like this could be sustainable, we usually end up hurting ourselves in the process. and somewhere deep down, we know we deserve better.
maybe we blame ourselves for not being well equipped enough to handle the road in front of us. or we blame ourselves for not figuring it out, or worse, we feel something is wrong with us for not being able to make it work. we feel as though we should be able to make it work, and we feel crazy in the process because we cannot decipher whether it is us, ourselves, that need to get a grip and force it to work, or if it simply is the very fact that maybe, it is not for us. and perhaps the fact that we are questioning whether we want something anymore, is telling us that maybe it is time to move on.
it is never a failure but rather an experience lived. it was a path taken and a lesson learned. it is all knowledge learned to take with you into the next. perhaps a lesson in knowing that you can trust what you want, even if things turn out differently, and you can still trust yourself enough to pivot, knowing life will continue to evolve and direct you where you are meant to go. it is never too late to begin choosing yourself. it is only when we wake up to the circumstances around us, and learn that they do not need to control us and suffocate us. we can take our power back into our hands and find the courage to take a step.
letting go of the idea of how things should be is how we can connect with what is actually true to ourselves. often times there is relief once the grip of the should is let go. often times when we release ourselves from the expectations we place on ourselves, we can move accordingly to what actually feels right. we can let go of how we wanted things to be and accept how they actually are. everything is temporary. so when it is no longer serving you, ask yourself what it would feel like it let it go. to get curious about making a change. to explore the possibilities of life without feeling constrained to something that is no longer for you.
there is never a right or wrong answer to how we should pivot or what changes we should make, yet it always seems to come down to reconnecting with ourselves, and continuing to be willing to meet ourselves as we change in the process of each chapter or step of the journey. and if there is one thing that remains to be true, it’s that sometimes the universe will make us so uncomfortable, where we can’t pretend, or hide from ourselves any longer. the discomfort can be a sign that it is time to move towards what feels true rather than force something that was never meant to last.
