What If the Life You Planned Isn't the Life You Want Anymore?

If you had told 20-year-old me what my life would look like today, I would have thought you were completely insane. And yep, that's me at 20 in the image above.

At that point, I was going to college to become a physical therapist. I had met the man I loved while I was an exchange student, and because we wanted to be together, we got married when I was 20. I figured I'd graduate, become a PT, work at a hospital, eventually have children, and live happily ever after.

That was what I thought my life was going to look like.

And if you had somehow shown that girl the woman I am today and said, This is where all of this is going, there is no fucking way she would have believed you.

What's really interesting to me now is that when I imagine actually living the life I thought I was going to create back then, I'm so grateful I didn't.

Not because that girl was wrong for wanting it. She was making choices based on who she was, what she knew, and what she wanted at the time.

She just couldn't possibly know who I was going to become.

We make some pretty big decisions when we're young

Think about it.

We ask people who are barely adults to decide what they want to do with their lives. Choose a career. Find a partner. Decide where to live. Start building the future.

And then we spend years building it.

The strange part is that somewhere along the way, we start acting as though we're supposed to remain loyal to decisions made by versions of ourselves who hadn't lived most of our lives yet.

I'm 58 now. Of course I don't want exactly what I wanted when I was 20.

I've had 38 more years of experiences. I've met people I couldn't have imagined meeting. I've loved. I've lost. I've succeeded. I've failed. I've changed my mind. I've questioned things I once believed without question. I've discovered parts of myself I didn't even know existed.

Why would I expect that woman to want exactly the same life that 20-year-old me planned for her?

And yet I think we do this all the time.

We confuse changing our minds with failing.

We confuse outgrowing something with being ungrateful.

We stay loyal to old decisions because once upon a time we wanted them.

The life you created may have been exactly right for you

This is where I want to be really clear.

I don't think we need to make our old lives wrong in order to choose something different now.

You may have wanted the marriage.

You may have desperately wanted those children.

You may have loved building your career.

You may walk around your house and remember when having a home like this was something you dreamed about.

You can love all of it.

And you can change.

Both can be true.

Maybe the life you created wasn't a mistake at all. Maybe it was exactly the life you wanted and needed for that chapter.

But you're still here.

And you're still creating.

Sometimes I wonder if we forget that part.

Who are you now?

That's a much more interesting question to me than, Who was I supposed to become?

Who are you now?

Not who were you at 20.

Not who did your parents expect you to be.

Not who does your spouse think you are.

Not who do your children need you to be.

Who are you, now?

What do you believe?

What makes you feel alive?

What are you curious about?

What have you completely lost interest in?

What do you want to experience?

What are you tolerating because you've tolerated it for so long that you barely even notice anymore?

What do you secretly want more of?

Those answers may be very different today than they would have been ten years ago.

Hell, they might be different than they were two years ago.

That's allowed.

I don't know if I'd call it bravery

When I look at my own life, I could say I was brave enough to follow my heart and soul.

And maybe I was.

But I'm not sure brave is the word.

I think I kept listening.

There were times when what I knew inside myself didn't match what the world around me was telling me.

There were plenty of messages that essentially said, No. You can't do that. That's not how this works. That's not what you're supposed to do.

Sometimes I listened to them.

Sometimes I didn't.

And over time, I got better at recognizing the difference between what was true for me and what I'd simply been taught was true.

I made choices.

Then I made another choice.

And another.

Some were huge. Some probably seemed insignificant at the time.

Eventually all of those choices started adding up to a life that actually looked like me.

And no, my life isn't perfect

I want to say this because I think there's a lot of bullshit out there suggesting that once you become your authentic self and follow your soul and align with your purpose, you'll float through the rest of your life in some state of perpetual bliss.

That's definitely not my experience.

Do I feel bad sometimes?

Hell yes.

Probably more often than most people who know me would think.

I get overwhelmed. I question myself. I get frustrated. I get hurt. Things don't always go the way I want them to. Sometimes I have no fucking idea what I'm doing.

Living authentically hasn't made me immune to being alive.

But in general, I wake up to a life that lights me up.

A life I choose.

There is a huge difference between living the life you're supposed to live and living the life you choose to live.

For me, that difference is everything.

Would you choose your life today?

This may be an uncomfortable question.

If you weren't already living the life you're living right now, would you choose it?

Maybe your answer is yes.

Maybe you'd choose your partner again. Your career. Your home. Your friendships. Your community. The way you spend your days.

Beautiful.

Then maybe the question isn't what you need to leave behind.

Maybe it's:

What else would you choose now that you didn't know enough about yourself to choose then?

And maybe there are parts of your life you wouldn't choose again.

That doesn't automatically mean you need to burn everything down tomorrow.

It means you've learned something about yourself.

Pay attention to it.

Because you are still allowed to participate in creating your life.

You don't have to keep becoming the woman you decided to be

I think that's one of the biggest things I've learned.

There isn't some finished version of me waiting at the end of all this.

I'm still discovering myself.

My truth keeps revealing itself as I live. Things light me up that I couldn't have imagined years ago. Other things that once mattered tremendously don't matter nearly as much anymore.

And I want to stay curious about that.

I want to keep asking myself what feels true now instead of automatically repeating what was true before.

That doesn't require abandoning everything you've created.

Sometimes it simply means allowing enough space for your truth to be seen.

And then being willing to listen when it shows up.

That's really what Reclaiming Your Sacred Fire is about for me.

Four days away from the normal rhythm of your life. Different surroundings. Different conversations. Ceremony. Nature. Creativity. Laughter. Rest. New experiences. Time to actually hear yourself.

Not so you can figure out everything that's wrong with your life.

So you can get curious about the woman living it.

The retreat ends and you go home.

But maybe you go home knowing yourself differently.

Maybe you make one choice you wouldn't have made before.

And then another.

And another.

Twenty-year-old me could never have imagined the life I'm living today.

I'm really glad she didn't get the final say.