If you try something out, and find it’s not for you - NOTHING has gone wrong.
That is a hard truth to believe – a tough pill to swallow.
All the messages around us scream that NO this cannot be the case. Marriages must last forever, jobs must be ‘just’ right, holidays must be perfect.
And yet sometimes they don’t, and they aren’t.
And sometimes that is every bit as valuable and important as something turning out exactly as you hoped it would.
The value of being in a situation that gives you a deep sense of knowing ‘this is not for me’ is high.
It’s so tempting to make up that something has gone wrong, that you’ve taken a ‘wrong’ turn you ‘shouldn’t’ have taken – the idea that *gasp* you’ve made a mistake. When actually, we learn so much if we’re prepared to pay deep and close attention.
Especially if we’re willing to move through the initial discomfort and regret that will inevitably rear its head and tempt us down an unhelpful road of self-flagellation and torment.
That’s a big piece of work, but not an insurmountable one.
And beyond that big piece of work is learning upon learning, and clarity upon clarity.
Because in every situation we don’t want, there is, by extension a deeper clarity about what we do want.
The new job that looked great in theory turns out to be a horrible fit for you. The holiday that ‘should’ have been relaxing turns into debacle after debacle.
And we can absolutely stay chewing over what went ‘wrong’. That is available to us every time.
There is the also the opportunity to lament and feel sad and all the other feelings that arise when thing don’t go to plan.
AND there is another space you can access with time, space and some processing where you can explore the ‘yes’ embedded in your ‘no’ – where you can start to name what comes into focus precisely because things didn’t go to plan.
Each detour or misstep inches us closer to understanding what truly matters to us. Each disorienting U-turn forces us to alter our perspective whether we want to or not.
Yes, these moments start by hurling us out of our comfort zone. Yes, they then dunk us in a pool of uncertainty we’d rather not be in.
But next they can lead us toward true-er truths about ourselves. Toward certainties that have some real substance to them.
Leaving us more sure footed than we were before we took that ‘wrong turn’ in the first place.