​Reader,​

Nobody prepares us for how much uncertainty we'll feel as an adult.

Or how much of our lives will feel like we have no idea what we're doing or where we're going.

I was going down a rabbit hole about this in my morning writing pages a few weeks ago.

Some prompt had got me wondering about when all of the change and uncertainty in my life really kicked off.

Was there a time I could point to and say: “Yes! This is where it began”? (I was pretty certain it was 2020 and the pandemic.)

So instead of writing, I decided to brain dump a change timeline.

Working backwards, I started listing the changes that either left a big impression or changed something fundamental about how I moved through the world.
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2024, 2022, 2021, 2020.
Surprise, surprise – it was not a Covid kick off.
The list kept going.
2018, 2015, 2012, 2010.
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I got all the way back to 2001 – when I graduated from college and moved to New York City – and I gave up.

There wasn't a single year in over twenty-five years where something didn’t shift in a big way.

I was moving constantly. Starting over in new places without knowing anyone. Not knowing where we'd go next. Leaving careers. Starting a business. Birth. Losses. Illness. Change after change after change. Some by choice. Many not.

There was never “not change.”

And I don’t believe for a second that I’m the only one.

Studies have shown that for every major life disruption, it can take us five years to get upright again. With an average of 3-5 of these lifequakes happening per lifetime, we spend about 15-25 years in the in-between. And that study was done pre-Covid.

Now, I’ve always thought change and the in-between were more common than what we think, but sitting there with my list staring me in the face was a bit of a rude awakening.

But unfortunately, that’s not how it’s talked about. Uncertainty is still thought of as something temporary.

We refer to it as a rough patch.

Like the majority of life happens in certainty and uncertainty is just the occasional glitch in the system.

But, treating it like it's a problem to solve is causing more harm than we realize.

Every time we…

Reach for tools to try and control it – better plans, clearer goals, tighter systems…

Attempt to reframe it with gratitude, mindset, and resilience…

Decide that the only solution is to surrender to it, trust the process, “divine” timing and just let it go…

We set ourselves up for failure. Because we’re making the assumption that certainty needs to be the goal, the endpoint. Like there's some cosmic timeline we're supposed to be following and uncertainty keeps getting in the way.

And when the uncertainty doesn’t resolve we feel like we’re falling behind or we did something wrong.

And it’s because we’re trying to solve something that isn’t broken. Uncertainty is part of life. It’s not the problem.

And when we finally break free of those expectations, we also let go of self-judgement around how we’re doing in life – giving us more space, self-compassion, and room to breathe.

And we’re able to slow the spiral down and get curious about what’s happening around us and how we want to respond to it.

We realize that our power was never waiting on the other side of uncertainty. It was here all the time. Right in the middle of it.

Hit reply to this email and let me know.

PS. If you're reading this and thinking "this is exactly where I am right now", I have a way to work with me directly. We cut through the noise together – what's shaping you from the outside, what's shifting on the inside, and what you're already sensing but haven't had space to listen to yet. You'll leave feeling more support and with more clarity. 60 minutes; 1:1 | $333. Book your session here.​

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