Navigating Change and Life Transitions (Part 1)
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How do you navigate life transitions, especially when they bring a mix of excitement and uncertainty?
In this episode of Embrace Your Real, I kick off a new series on navigating life transitions. As I eagerly await the arrival of my baby, I want to share insights on how to handle major life changes with an open mindset. Whether you're excited or apprehensive about a transition, it's important to embrace the journey with grace and understanding. We’ll discuss the emotional rollercoaster that comes with change, the importance of allowing yourself to fully feel your emotions, and how to maintain a sense of identity amidst new circumstances. This episode will help you view transitions as opportunities for growth and renewal, providing practical advice on coping with difficult aspects and finding beauty in new beginnings.
What I discuss:
Make sure you give yourself space to fully feel your feelings.
Let go of placing your identity in impermanent things.
If you loved this episode, be sure to tune in to…
Episode 272: How to Handle Life Getting in the Way of Your Fitness Goals
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hey, hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace your real let's get it. Let's go. [00:00:32]
[00:00:32] Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode. By the time you listen to this episode, I hope that this baby inside of me right now, as we record, is now outside of me. And that's why I kind of wanted to dive into this little podcast series on life transitions, because all of us at some point will experience a life transition, and it's extremely hard to navigate through, even if it's a transition that you're excited about, that you chose, right. The path that you chose to go down, it's going to still be extremely hard. There's going to be hard parts of it. And so in this episode that I'm going to be diving into part one of this series on life transitions, is kind of exploring how to navigate through them with an open mindset so that we can use them as a chance for growth, renewal, and a better future. Plus, what kind of explore the difficult aspects of life transitions, how to cope with them, and how to view these changes as beautiful new opportunities. Before we dive in though, I want to share. This review comes from Smiley Cake because you get a five star review and said complete mindset shift. I was such in the mindset to just be in weight loss mode and if I lost weight then I'd be happy. But Julie lays it out perfectly and help me shift my mindset that I don't need to deprive myself and I can enjoy food and workout in a way that's effective and actually helps me get the body that I want. Thank you so much! I love this so much. Smiley cake Bake I love that name! That is such a fun name. So thank you so much for taking time out of your day to send in that review. I genuinely appreciate every single one of you guys as reviews. Let's dive into kind of life transitions and how to cope with them, and let's just chat about them, because it's a whole topic and definitely something that I am about to embark on. And at the time of this, I am likely already embarking on. So let's kind of explore a few different ways of kind of navigating through them. Number one, make sure that you give yourself space to feel your feelings. So change can trigger a range of emotions from fear, anxiety, sadness, frustration. Even if it's a life transition that you're excited about, like excitement and anticipation about a new chapter that can coexist with apprehension and doubt. And I just talked about this in my Q&A series. Like, I have just as much excitement and anticipation that I do fear and doubt. Right. And I think that that is it sounds so contradictory, but they can coexist at the same time. And it's common to feel the sense of loss for what you're leaving behind, even as you look forward to what's ahead and kind of this disruption of your familiar routines and the comfort of the known. This can create this emotional roller coaster. So it's important to remember this. It's natural to feel unsettled when you feel kind of disrupted within you, like your mind and your body are adjusting to new circumstances. And this adjustment period can and most likely will be turbulent. And this is why it's so important to allow yourself the grace to experience these emotions without judgment. Acknowledging and validating your feelings. This is a crucial, crucial step in processing and moving through them. So kind of work on understanding that it's okay to feel this mix of emotions. It's 100% okay. It's 100% normal, especially during these big transitional periods. And when you do, it can also help you navigate them more smoothly and with a greater compassion for yourself. Like perhaps you know this is a negative life transition. This makes it all the more important feel that you need to feel, because you need to remember to not get stuck there, like feel your feelings and then work on finding acceptance for where you are now and finding trust within yourself and within God, that you will do what it takes to get to where you want to be in the future. Remember that not all life situations are permanent, right? This too shall pass and if it is permanent, remember that you two are capable of changing your outlook and your perspective on it at any given moment. Number two, I need you to let go of placing your identity in impermanent things, right? Many life transitions, such as having a baby like myself, getting a new job, moving to a new city, or even changing your body. This can lead to a sense of a lost identity, and these significant changes often make you feel like you question your sense of self, right? Like, who are you without your old career or new baby, or in a city without friends or not in your old body? Acknowledge that it's okay to mourn the loss of your identity. It's a natural part of the process. Give yourself permission to grieve what you're leaving behind, while still being able to look forward to the future and understanding that it's normal to feel disoriented. It's normal to feel unsure of who you are, what this next season is going to unfold. Anyone going through what you're going through is going to feel the same sense of identity loss, and that is totally normal. So you have to treat yourself to, you know, with the same kind of kindness that you would offer a friend going through a similar experience, I. Don't hold yourself to an unrealistic expectation that you need to navigate through this transition without experiencing any sort of loss. But as you do this, it's also the perfect time for you to realize that your identity shouldn't be the role you play, what your body looks like, or the things that you do right. So take some time to reflect on what truly matters to you, because your core values and your character, those are the things that define you through these life transitions your core values, your character. Those oftentimes remain constant even as and even though your external circumstances and external circumstances change, right? These values can be a guiding light as you navigate your new life, or your new body, or your new job, or the new city or whatever it is, right? Whether it's becoming a parent, it's starting a new job, it's adapting to a new body. It's embracing your role that you are in. Fully see it as an opportunity to grow and expand your understanding of who you are, without placing your identity in those things. Embrace the journey. Embrace your will, and trust that each transition will bring you closer to kind of an understanding of becoming your truest self, and recognizing that all of these seasons will gain you wisdom and knowledge and years under your belt. Right? And just know that it's okay to grieve what you knew, right? That was something that that's all you knew, maybe. Or it was maybe an old place that you've lived in and you've grew up there. You went to high school there. You spent your years after high school there. Maybe you went to college there, your family lives there, and now you're moving to a new place and it's totally new. It's okay to grieve that. It's okay to grieve the life that you know, you once knew that was so comfortable to you, and now you're walking into a totally new season. It's okay to grieve that, but I don't want you to stay there. I don't want you to stay in this mindset of like, oh my gosh, I just so much I want you to look with anticipation towards this next chapter, this next season, this next unknown, with hope and excitement and just this eagerness to want to grow in knowledge and wisdom and character. Because at the end of the day, I believe our life circumstances build more character and allow us to become wiser. So there you have it. That is part one in our series of navigating life changes and transitions. So step one feel your feelings and acknowledge the change and transition that is weighing down on you. And number two, mourn the loss of your identity, but work on understanding. Your identity should only lie within your core values in your character, not things in life that are fleeting, not seasons in life that will come and go. So if you or someone you know is going through a life transition, I hope that this episode was helpful for you. And I know that you will also love episode 272 How to Handle Life getting in the way of your goals. So I will go ahead and link that in the show notes below. But if you have someone that is going through a transition in their life, shoot them over this podcast episode. I hope that it will help them. I hope that if you are going through or about to go through a life transition, that this will help give you some good insight and some inspiration, some just some encouragement because that is what I am here to do. I'm here to come alongside of you and encourage you, educate you, empower you in some way, shape or form. But that is all that I have for today's episode. I love you so much. I mean it, and I'll talk to you in the next one. [00:08:52][503.7]
[00:12:07] All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so. Julie A Ledbetter. Yes, it's with an A in the middle for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace it real because you're worth it. [00:13:07][0.0]