02/09/2025
The most disorienting part of personal growth is that it rarely feels like progress while it’s happening. It often feels like everything you thought you knew about yourself is dissolving. Old patterns feel foreign, familiar responses seem inadequate, and previous certainties crumble under new awareness.
This can feel like losing yourself, but it’s actually the opposite. You’re shedding who you thought you had to be so you can discover who you truly are. The confusion, exhaustion, and even grief that surface during transformation aren’t signs of failure. They’re proof that growth is taking place at the deepest levels.
Transformation is rarely neat or predictable. At times, it feels like three steps back for every one forward. You might circle through the same lessons, peeling back a deeper layer each time. You may react in ways that surprise you; sometimes softer in moments you once resisted, and stronger in moments you once avoided. This isn’t regression; it’s integration. You’re not just changing behaviours, you’re rewiring your nervous system, updating your beliefs, and restructuring your entire way of being. Real change feels chaotic because it is the necessary unravelling before the becoming.
The greatest gift you can offer yourself in these seasons is permission to not have it all figured out. Allow yourself to be confused without rushing to clarity. Rest without guilt when you feel drained. Grieve without needing to name exactly what’s leaving. Beneath the turbulence, a new version of you is emerging. One that’s more aligned with truth, more resilient, and more capable of holding life’s complexity.
You don’t need to recognize this self just yet. Your only task is to stay present to the process, to breathe through the uncertainty, and to trust that transformation knows where it’s leading you. The person who emerges will be worth every moment of not knowing.