The life you were ‘supposed’ to live

vs. the life you are ‘meant’ to live.

My teacher Annie Fox recorded a video following the season change and fall equinox. In it, she speaks about letting go of the life you were “supposed” to be living in exchange for the life that is trying to come through you.

Because, as it often turns out, the life you thought would be true is not. As it turns out, where you “thought” you would/should be isn’t where you are.

The more you let go of what you thought you would want or have but don’t, the more room you create for the life that you are meant to be living. That life, the one that communicates to you through your intuition, is so satisfying and delightful and full of warmth and closeness and excitement. That life is right there, unfolding inside of you, and it wants to be lived.

It hurts!

As Michael Singer (and Joe Dispenza, and Louise Hay, etc.) all say, what is imprinted with pain will release with pain. 

Letting go of what isn’t quite right (or is, in fact, all the way wrong) will be painful. Releasing memories and patterns that you no longer want to live according to will hurt at first. That is a sign that you’re doing it right. Glennon Doyle writes about the rawness of early sobriety in this same vein. Initially, she says, when you face the pain instead of escape it, it feels like you’re doing it all wrong because it feels so bad. But actually, feeling the pain is exactly how you know you are finally healing.

When you break free, or inch your way closer and closer to more freedom, it will hurt. Hold your own hand, and know that the universe is designed to walk you back home to yourself, every time. Trust that it will become easier and lighter the more you let go, and that eventually, it will become so beyond beautiful that you cannot even fathom what it was like to be holding onto so much pain.

If you are not willing to embrace and let go of the discomfort that change inevitably brings, you will stay stuck. Luckily, the fear and uncertainty that comes along with diverging from the life you ‘thought’ you’d be living is so manageable. You are so capable of moving through it. Hard feelings are just roads to be traveled along; be curious enough to discover what is on the other side.

Drop the shoulds!

You don’t have to wait until you get to the next decade of your life to realize that you are living something that doesn’t feel quite right. You can start now by thoroughly clearing your closet of all the “should’s” and “have to’s.”

You don’t have to be friends with that person, you don’t have to stay in this disappointing or lackluster or straight-up harmful situation, you don’t have to keep sending your power away for the sake of being ‘accommodating’. You don’t have to keep following the rules and ideas of how you should be that were imprinted in you years ago.

You aren’t supposed to live any way other than the way you really want to live. When you align more closely with your authentic desires and preferences, the life you are meant to live, the one you are (dare I say) destined for, will have room to come through.

The paradox of agency.

The paradox of agency is that as you realize how much power you have to choose, you have no choice but to surrender to the truth in front of you. It becomes harder and harder to force anything that is not quite right, because you know you have the ability to choose differently.

Once you get a taste of living the life you are born for, once you taste clarity and know what it’s like to make a decision or embark on a path that feels really right — you won’t want to go back to living by default. 

There are infinite potentials of lives to be lived in your lifetime. The doors to the next version of you are open, if you choose to see them as such. You can walk through them.

xx, maggie

Much love and happy fall! May it be balanced, and may you feel invigorated by life.