The Strange Tug of Letting Go
There are a lot of big feelings swirling around right now. Even the slightest push and pull, that weird tug-of-war between letting go of old things and making space for whatever’s coming next. It’s that in-between place where you’re halfway out of one chapter and not quite settled in the next. Like standing in a doorway you don’t even remember choosing, holding a box of old memories you suddenly have no clue what to do with.
When Feeling Unsettled Looks Like Failure
For most of my life, I assumed that feeling meant something was wrong. I read it as a personal failure, proof that I wasn’t grounded enough, healed enough, steady enough, or even evolved enough, whatever new self-help term was trending that week. If I felt unsettled, I thought it meant I was slipping backward. And if I was slipping backward, well… cue the internal monologue telling me I should “be doing better by now.”
The Moment Everything Shifted
But somewhere along this messy road of healing, somewhere between the therapy sessions, the breakthroughs, the setbacks, and the “oh god, not this lesson again” moments, I learned something that changed everything:
That push-and-pull I’ve been feeling?
That is the transition.
Grieving the Familiar While Moving Toward the Unknown
I haven’t taken a detour, nor is it a sign I am failing at all. It’s not even a sign I’m stuck. It’s the exact sensation of being in motion. I’ve been here before, so part of me does know what it means, even if I forget every single time. It’s the part where my system is grieving what was familiar, even if it wasn’t good for me, while also sensing something new is on its way, something I’m not entirely sure I trust yet.
And honestly, that’s completely okay.
New things always feel suspicious at first. Because let’s face it, whose nervous system actually does “surprise guests”?
Big Feelings Are Signs of Expansion
But there’s something I keep coming back to, no matter how much work I’ve done or how many times I’ve learned this same lesson in different ways:
Big feelings always show up when we’re expanding.
They’re not proof that something is wrong. They’re proof that something is shifting.
These feelings are the emotional stretch marks of growth, the evidence that we’re changing shape, stepping into bigger rooms inside ourselves, and shedding versions of us that no longer fit who we’re becoming. Growth rarely arrives neatly. It arrives with friction, confusion, tenderness, hesitation, and a little bit of “who even am I today?”
Becoming in the Not-Yet
And as uncomfortable as it is, that discomfort is also a sign:
I’m moving.
I’m shifting.
And I’m becoming.
Not perfectly. Or gracefully. But honestly. And that honesty, that willingness to stay with myself in the middle of the swirl, just might be the real transformation.