What Really Happens When You Radically Change Your Life

Back in the early summer of 2014, I googled "how to change your life and be awesome." I am not kidding. That actually happened. A few months after that, I finally did.

The part of me that I had spent so long shaming and repressing and ignoring and telling to shut the hell up and settle for crumbs off the floor finally got pissed off enough to take a match to all the things in her life that she knew weren't right.

It was incredibly beautiful and life-giving, but radically changing my life was also harder than I could have ever imagined.

The thing they don't tell you is that it's not going to be like it is in the movies. There will not be music from a slew of charmingly obscure indie rock bands playing in the background. You will not be wearing some hip and breezy Anthropologie ensemble and drinking a pour-over coffee made with locally roasted beans. You will not look perpetually radiant thanks to a carefully engineered combination of dewy make up and soft lighting.

No matter how much you try to explain and persuade, at least some of the "big deal" people in your life are not going understand or support the changes you're initiating. Some of them might even be vocally opposed to your choices.  Like, really vocally opposed.

And for all of the good stuff that shows up, new hard stuff shows up too.

As you get stronger and braver and more in touch with your wholeness, you’re also moving further and further out into new, uncharted (translation: scary and wonderful) territory.

Big change doesn't always feel awesome.

It will probably involve a lot of not-so-glamorous moments when you’re wearing sweatpants, having chocolate milk and Cheetos for dinner, and watching embarrassingly bad TV.

You might feel pretty lonely and afraid a lot of the time.  I was too (and, occasionally, I still am).  You might want to just turn around and run back to the well-traveled road you left because it feels so much safer and has so many more traveling companions than this new path seems to.  I did too sometimes.

But just KEEP GOING.  Putting one foot in front of the other and doing the next right thing.

You're doing it perfectly. I promise.