The lie I used to believe

When I was a teenager, tangled in the messy web of angst, and existential questions that come along with adolescence, I clung to a belief like a lifeline - things will get better when I’m older. It was my secret survival mantra. I believed that the angst, awkwardness, and unease of being a teen would magically dissolve the moment I turned 18 and left school. Then, life would begin and I would finally feel comfortable in my own skin.

When the anticipated shift never came, I simply shifted the goalposts. “At 21”, I told myself, “When I’ve got a degree and a job and I’m properly adulting, then everything will fall into place”. Confidence would arrive in a tidy package and I would suddenly be wise and self-assured.

Umm…Wrong again.

So, of course, I moved the bar once more. Maybe it’s not about independence. Maybe it’s about love. Once I met the right person and got married, then surely, life would feel more secure? I’d feel chosen. Anchored. Happy.

And yet still I felt adrift.

Then came the next hopeful stage of life. “Maybe when I have children. That’s what will fill the void. That’s when I’ll finally feel whole and complete”.

Then feeling completely burnt out from parenting, working and personal relationships, I told myself, “If I could just take some time to be a stay-at-home mom, to be more present for my husband and kids, remove the stress of work, then I will be able to find peace”…And then my 15-year marriage came crashing down.

I have let so many seasons slip through my fingers in the hope that the next one would finally fix me. I kept telling myself that fulfilment was somewhere ahead of me. I wasn’t living, I was waiting, surviving. Until I reached the point where it was impossible to future fake anymore.

The lie I used to believe?
That external change would lead to internal transformation.

But here’s the truth. Change doesn’t happen when we arrive somewhere new. It happens when we decide to show up differently. Wherever you go – there you are.

The moment everything actually began to change for me only happened once I stopped waiting to be rescued by the next chapter and started doing the work to feel whole in the present one, regardless of the circumstances.

I paused. I got curious. I took an honest look at what needed my attention and what I had been avoiding and putting off. I stopped waiting on the world to deliver a version of happiness I thought I wanted.

There’s no magic fix and no external fresh start that’s going to give us the change we long for. What we find most often is that after the initial glow of change fades, we’re left with the same old stuff rearing its ugly head—just in a different setting. Because the problem was never just the place. It was what we were carrying into it.

When I took ownership of my healing.
When I let go of timelines.
When I stopped outsourcing my happiness to future versions of myself.

Things began to finally shift.

The power to create lasting, meaningful change isn’t out there. It’s inside of yourself. It always has been. But it takes courage, honesty and humility to face, because it means accepting that the life you want won’t arrive by accident, it will be built, day by day, by you being willing to face and do the inner work.