Today’s Find Your Flow message is about what happens when you say you want to move forward, but a part of you is still looking backward.

I’ve been thinking about how impossible it is to move confidently in one direction while your head is turned completely in the opposite direction. I didn’t even fully realize this was an old pattern I was still running until someone pointed it out to me last week. 

He said“you’re asking a past version of you to make this decision, and give you the certainty to say yes—and that’s just not possible.” 

You may get away with making new decisions and somewhat moving forward, but you can’t fully lean into your next chapter without becoming someone new. An expanded version of you is waiting for you when you’re ready to loosen your grip on your past.  

Think of it this way. You’re walking down the street. You have a destination a few blocks ahead of you, but with each step you keep focusing on what’s behind you. What stores you past. What the street looked like. Wondering if maybe you should’ve entered somewhere, remembering something you saw. Wanting to call or message someone to connect about something you just saw. 

Think about how much energy all of this takes. 

Can you continue walking with your head and energy looking backwards. Possibly. Can you do it successfully and safely? Not at all. 

You will slow down, hesitate and miss what’s right in front of you. You can’t be present, and your body will be focused on safety and security rather than trusting and seeing what’s ahead with your eyes and heart wide open. 

Can you feel that? 

Where is your life are you running this pattern? 

I think we do this in life more than we realize.

We decide we want something different, but then we keep turning around to compare it to what we had before. We judge a new opportunity by whether it looks like the old one. You may start wondering if you can really trust yourself? Can you really pull it off? Maybe you just need more time, to figure it out a little harder, to wait for a sign or that person to help you. 

While this sometimes feels like the right thing to do, I promise there is another way. A more aligned, intentional, inspiring and connected way to choose what you want and step into it. 

Remember, the goal is not to return to a version of you that made sense in a life and season you’re no longer actually living.
There’s nothing wrong with looking back. Our past can provide so much useful information. It shows you what worked, what didn’t, what mattered and what you learned. It helps you gain clarity. 

But there’s a point where looking back stops being reflection and starts becoming your orientation. 

Are you spending more time in past, present or future time? 

Even when the old way isn’t working anymore, at least you know it. And, even if it’s painful, it’s what’s comfortable from one perception. From another way of being, it’s actually quite uncomfortable to cram yourself into an old life when you’re willing to truly see what’s no longer serving you and your loved ones. 

A new direction asks something different of you. It asks you to be willing to feel uncertainty. To trust yourself. To release the need to be right. You have to remind yourself that it’s ok to course correct. To try and learn something new is such important information. So that’s not a failure, it’s just data.  

This is something I have clients mention often when they’re transitioning or ready for something new as well. “But, I’ve spent so much time already. I’m sure I can make it work. Or, How could I have wasted so much time and then they experience some version of shame and guilt.” 

Remember, you are growing and changing. 

What served you in one season, may not grow with you—and that’s ok. 

You can still be grateful for what a chapter gave you without trying to live there forever. It doesn’t mean you made a mistake, it means maybe you ignored some cues and now you’re learning how to pay attention at a deeper level. Or, you just had a different outcome that most likely you were attached to and was meaningful for you and once that was met you were able to hold more truth about the situation. 
Maybe the question isn’t , “How do I get back to what was working?”

Maybe it’s, “What am I willing to try now?”

If you keep needing the future to resemble the past before you trust it, you may never actually give the future a chance to become something different and create what you’d truly love to have and who you’d truly love to be.

So this week, notice where you might still be walking forward with your head turned behind you.

Not because you need to erase the past or stop appreciating it, but because you may need your full attention towards where you’re going next.

Lots of love,

Laurin