You Don’t Have to Be Healed to Begin | Bonus

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This is the mini solo series, The Things We Carry, small moments and themes that keep me thinking way after the conversations on the Life Shift Podcast. Hey there, this is one of the solo episodes that I created so that I had a little space to talk about some of the themes or the ideas that keep popping up in all of these conversations on the Life Shift Podcast now over 230-something episodes. For this one, I wanted to talk about the idea that you have to be healed before you can change your life. That doesn't quite sit right with me, but we've heard it more than we can count, right? Healing doesn't have to be fully done before you can start living differently. I remember talking with my friend Matt, and he brought up something that really kind of stood out. He said, not everyone is meant to heal. It's not about giving up or saying some people are broken beyond repair. It's more that healing and that really deep change is a choice. And it's hard. Sometimes the world forces us to face ourselves, but it doesn't mean that we're ready to change. And that's okay. Because change doesn't always look beautiful, right? Messy, slow burn. Sometimes it's okay to just sit in the mess for a long time. I did it. One of my guest stories came back to me. uh She was sick for years, pushing pretty much everything down, trying to be the high achiever that didn't show any breaks. One day in the quiet of her own kitchen, she said out loud that she believed in her ability to heal. And she made a vow to trust herself. Despite all the doubt, despite years of pain and loss, she didn't have it all figured out. She just started showing up for herself, creating rituals to kind of reach toward that unshakable part of her. It wasn't an overnight transformation. I think it was, you know, an unfolding, a steady unfolding. And Daniel's story, it was really about shedding the armor that no longer fit and doing it even when the world felt unsafe. He left behind performances and expectation, even if it was scary and uncertain, and talked about being in a place where you're not healed, not fixed, but you're still moving forward, still creating. It wasn't about perfection or arriving somewhere. It's about the courage to keep going, to be more honest with yourself, and to find joy in that. And I think about these stories because they remind me that healing and change aren't like points at the end of a line. They're probably more like circles that we walk around, and sometimes we step in the circle and sometimes we step out. They don't wait for us to be perfect or completely whole. And they, I guess, welcome us in our brokenness, in the fear, when we're unsure or exhausted. And sometimes that moment we think we're stuck is really when the shift begins. I know the feeling of wanting to wait until you're ready, until the pain is less, until the doubt quiets down. But what if it doesn't? What if waiting means missing out on the chance to live differently right now? Even if it's messy, even if it's incomplete. And I don't have all the answers because I'm still living, I'm still figuring it out. But I wanted to invite you that if you're sitting with a loss or a decision or a feeling of not wanting to stay stuck, to notice it. See that you don't have to be healed first. You don't have to have it all sorted out or even be a different person. You can just be willing to start moving and take one small step towards the life that you want to live. And maybe that step looks like asking a question you've been afraid to ask. Maybe it looks like honoring a feeling that you've been pushing down. And maybe it's simply just noticing where you are and saying, I'm here. I'm not perfect. And that's enough. So change doesn't wait for healing. Healing and change can happen together. They can hold space for each other in the same messy, beautiful unfolding that is life. So I'm with you in that. And I'm curious to see where this next step takes you.