I love astrology and often rely on weekly predictions to help me get a sense of what's coming up.
But during a hard season of life,
I started noticing something.
I kept telling myself that once a certain planetary placement shifted,
Or once one of my houses cleared from a difficult aspect,
Then things would get better.
Week after week,
I waited,
And nothing changed.
I was still facing the same challenges,
And that made me feel even more discouraged.
Then I caught the pattern.
I was setting false finish lines,
Milestones in time that never actually brought relief.
To be fair,
Those false finish lines did help me in the moment.
They gave me something to look forward to,
A reason to hold on just a little longer.
And I needed that at the time.
But eventually,
The letdown became too heavy.
Every time life didn't get better when I thought it would,
I felt more defeated.
So I made a choice.
I stopped setting finish lines I could never reach.
And something amazing happened.
I started accepting the present moment more.
It didn't make the hard days go away,
But I could be in them instead of trying to muscle through them.
I wasn't enduring anymore.
I was experiencing.
You see,
When we set false finish lines,
We're unknowingly telling the universe that this moment isn't enough,
That we'll only tolerate it if something better is coming.
But when we accept the now,
Even in its difficulty,
It can become a place where we find unexpected peace and aliveness.
This shift has helped me stop feeling so disappointed by life.
I've been able to surrender more,
To be with what is.
And,
Like anything,
When we surrender,
Life tends to flow more easily through us.
I'll be honest,
It's not always easy to change our thought patterns.
But with time,
I stopped doing this to myself,
And I can honestly say I'm in a better place for it.
So if you find yourself setting false finish lines,
And they're not helping anymore,
I invite you to try something different.
The next time you catch yourself waiting for that black and white checkered flag,
Pause,
And gently say to yourself,
I don't want to do that to myself anymore.
And over time,
You might watch it melt away.
Thanks for listening,
And I hope this helps someone out there.