Before the Next Chapter Takes Shape

Change rarely arrives gently.
It doesn’t ask for permission, and it doesn’t wait until we feel ready. It unsettles the ground beneath our feet, even when we know—deep down—that staying where we are is no longer an option.

Transition is especially hard because it lives in the in-between. The old version of life, identity, or certainty has loosened its grip, but the new one hasn’t fully taken shape yet. There’s a stretch of time where nothing feels solid. Where you’re doing your best to move forward while quietly grieving what’s being left behind. And that grief doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice—it means you cared.

Growth is exhausting in ways that don’t always look impressive from the outside. It’s not always bold or confident or full of clarity. Sometimes it’s just waking up and showing up when everything inside you wants to curl up in a ball and cry. Sometimes growth looks like doubt, fear, second-guessing, and tears you didn’t expect. Sometimes it looks like sitting in silence, wondering if you have the strength to keep going.

But here’s the truth I keep coming back to: those moments are not signs of failure. They are signs of expansion.

When something is stretching you beyond what you’ve known, your body and heart respond. Discomfort is part of the process. It’s the tension that comes from becoming someone new, from stepping into a life that requires more trust than certainty. If growth felt easy, it wouldn’t be growth—it would just be repetition.

There is something deeply human about wanting to retreat when things feel unfamiliar. We crave safety, predictability, proof. And yet, the most meaningful transformations happen without guarantees. They ask us to walk forward with faith instead of answers. To believe that what’s unfolding—even if it feels fragile or chaotic—is leading us somewhere we could never have imagined from where we started.

So when you find yourself in a season that feels heavy, tender, or overwhelming, try to be gentle with yourself. You’re not behind. You’re not weak. You’re standing at the threshold of something new. And thresholds are uncomfortable places—they require us to let go with one hand before we can reach forward with the other.

This is the work of becoming.
This is the cost of choosing growth over comfort.
This is what it feels like right before something greater begins.

You don’t have to see the whole path. You just have to trust the next step. And sometimes, faith is simply believing that the ache you feel now is making room for something far better than you ever could have planned.

Keep going. Even when it’s hard.
Especially when it’s hard.