There comes this moment, before every big event in my life, where I have wondered, Am I ready for this? Is this the right thing?
It’s not a gentle wondering, either. It’s a loud, hot, cold, hot, cold, numb, hot hot hot kind of wondering. A spiral of wondering that tornadoes down to a funnel that drips into a bucket labeled “Probably Not.” (That may seen a tad melodramatic—but such is life with an anxiety disorder!) An endless wondering that darts in and out of moments for days or even weeks leading up to a life-changing event.
I remember it before my wedding almost twenty years ago. As I stretched out on my childhood bed and talked to my fiancé on the phone, I was blasted by the sudden thought: Am I doing the right thing? Am I ready to grow up? Do I even want to be married?
I remember it on the way to the hospital before the birth of my first child, and then the second, the third, the fourth and fifth together, the sixth: Are we crazy to think we could do this?
I remember it before every book has published.
We all experience this, in one way or another. Maybe not as dramatically as I do. But it’s a natural part of growing and stepping into something new and a little bit scary and entirely unpredictable, because there’s no guarantee it will work out.
Am I ready for this? we think.
Sometimes the answer is yes. I love those times, when I feel like I’ve prepared myself as much as I can, when I feel confident and in control, when I have a pretty good idea of the projected outcome. I think I’ve experienced that once in my life. Maybe twice.
Most of the time, I reach these giant (for me) turning points in my life story, and I don’t feel prepared. I read more than twenty parenting books before we had our first kid, and when the doctor released me from the hospital with this tiny screaming infant, I still didn’t know what I was doing. I was unprepared, even though I’d prepared.
I feel unprepared a lot.
I’m coming to understand that’s not a bad thing.
It’s probably no surprise to you that I am change-averse. I’ve written before that I thrive on routine and predictability—and change is certainly not predictable (though my response to it is!). But change is also necessary in life. No one goes through life without experiencing change. The physical body is proof of that.
Change can be scary. Major life events can be, too. We hardly ever feel prepared. We’ll probably (like many of the characters in stories) wonder, for just a moment, if we can maintain the status quo, keep living the same life and still be happy. Hold off until we’re ready.
The Spanish philosopher José Ortega once said, “We cannot put off living until we’re ready.”
I agree.
Sometimes we’re thrown into something before we’re completely ready. But that’s the beauty of humanity—we grow. We adapt. We surprise ourselves with our ability to carry on. To really live. To thrive and continue becoming ourselves, one unprepared step at a time.
We’re like characters in a real-life story. The Major Life Event is our catalyst, before change begins. We get to walk through our own emotional journey and become different people on the other side. I am certainly a much different person than I was pre-marriage and pre-kids. I like this version a lot more, I must confess.
Next time you and I face one of these crossroads where we could continue on as is or step into a future for which we’re not completely prepared, I hope we say, Bring it on. I can’t wait to see who I am on the other side.
Have a happy March of growth and renewal.
Here are some of my best tips for embracing change:
1. Keep a journal
I know, this is my go-to tip for just about everything (I even talk about it at school visits). So if you’ve already heard my spiel, go ahead and listen again.
When we record these feelings of inadequacy and unpreparedness in journals, we not only get them off our chests, we also give ourselves a gift: the gift of hindsight. Memories aren’t always accurate, when they stay trapped in our minds. The next time we face another life event for which we feel inadequate and unprepared, we may not remember that we felt the exact same way about this other thing that turned out just fine (or not—that’s also useful information). But if we recorded it in a journal, we can look back and probably feel a little relief that we’ve been here before and we made it out alive.
2. Play a game called Change the Small Stuff
This is a little game I play with myself, to prove that change isn’t going to kill me.
I am such a creature of habit. I get up at the same time every morning, I do my morning routine in the same order, I write at the same time every day, I eat dinner at the same time every evening with my family. I even run the same routes through my city.
But one morning I changed my running route. I made my morning tea before I meditated. I wrote my daily poem after I edited another manuscript. And it was awful. All of it. But you know what? The next time I played the game with myself, it was one percent less awful, because I had grown one percent.
We can adapt to change, too (even if sometimes we have to repeat that as a mantra).
3. Talk to a therapist
You may get tired of me pointing, always, to therapy—but you must know that it’s only because I love you and I want you to live the best life you can and I know how valuable therapy can be for changing our mindsets and helping us grow. I think we can all benefit from therapy, no matter what we’ve been through in our lives.
And the truth is, not every instance of life throwing us into something for which we feel unprepared will be good. Some will be awful. And completely out of our control. And we have to make sure we take care of our hearts and minds. Talking with a licensed therapist or a psychologist or psychiatrist can help us come to terms with ourselves, our circumstances, and our future.
Get more writing like this by signing up for my newsletter at https://racheltoalson.podia.com/newsletter.