The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest
“Healing is not about arriving at a place where everything is perfect, but developing the ability to respond to what is imperfect.
There are no seamless lives, no parts of our story where we do not confront any challenge, tension, discomfort, or pain. It is not about whether or not the inevitable stressors of life meet us somewhere along the line, but how we respond when they do. When we remain on the surface — in our highest reactivity — we do everything we can to fight off, numb out, deny and run from what hurts. When we are ready to start taking an intentional role in how our lives play out, we begin to approach the moment from a deeper place.
Where we once saw roadblocks, we now see detours; moments to pause and ask — ‘is this where I really intend to go, is this how I really mean to be?’ Where we once saw the ugliest parts of ourselves we tried the hardest to hide, we now see opportunities to let the most human parts of ourselves be seen, and loved. Where we once saw an invitation to re-engage in our oldest and most self-defeating habits, we now see an opportunity to detach what we feel from how we respond.
When we react instantaneously to every thought, feeling or impetus we are confronted with, we become controlled by our past, by our surroundings, by the engrained habits of the people we used to be, not the ones we dream of becoming.
We become the sum of what we engage with, because what we engage with is what we empower.
In order to move into the lives we want, we must first change how we respond to the lives we have. Right here is the starting point, the foundation, the doorway, the entry, to all we are asking for. It is not out in the distance, but in front of us today. When we use discomfort as a catalyst to develop a different way of seeing things, we change the way we interact with them, and when we change the way we interact with them — we change what they are.
We change what they are going to be.”
