what to do when life isn't going according to plan: this is your reset

so it's not going according to plan. the thing you thought would work out just isn't working out, and you're sitting somewhere in between the life you imagined and the one you're actually living.

this week we're talking about the reset- the real one. not the overhaul, not the five-year plan, not the version where you wake up at 5am a brand new woman: the reset that starts with letting yourself grieve the plan you lost, finding the redirect underneath it, and taking one single step forward.

we're covering why grief doesn't only belong to death, how to mourn past versions of yourself without guilt, the four things to do when you feel completely stuck, and how to reconnect to your why when the path you planned falls apart.

this is your plot twist, not your ending.

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Transcript

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So it's not going according to plan. The thing that you thought would work out just isn't working out, and you're sitting in between everything that you have imagined for yourself and reality. What do you do? Where do you go? What is the next step forward? First, I want you to take a second to just breathe And second, I want you to understand this. This is just a plot twist. This is a pivotal moment in your story, one of those chapters that has you holding on. But I can promise you that it all gets turned around. This is your reset. And this episode today on the Self Love Archives podcast is gonna take you through the reset that you actually need. Welcome back to the Self Love Archives podcast. I'm your host, Julia Salvia, also known as your self-love bestie. And we've been talking about a couple things this month, and taking you through each week, we… Our theme for August is releasing control and being more flexible. But we can't do that unless what we talked about in last week's episode, we let go of this timeline that was created for us, that we need to reach certain goals or have certain things at a certain age in our life, like getting married at 25, having kids by 26. Well, what do you do with the rest of your life? There's so much life to live, and as much as we want to plan these things out, as much as we want to be in control of absolutely everything that happens in our life, sometimes we just can't. And sometimes it's even better to just go with the flow and be flexible about how our manifestations and how life comes to us, rather than fighting it, trying to just be in control of every little thing. But okay, you've understood that you can't be in control of everything. You know, if you want it to be a sunny day and it rains, you're not in control of that. And you totally are in the process or have already successfully let go of this ridiculous timeline that society, societal pressures, your parents, your a friend's grandmother or someone has put on you. Social media comparison has even put on you. Now that you have finally let these things go and you understand that you have these values and these goals and these things that you want in this life, well If you feel like everything's not going according to plan, how do you actually reset the, the clock? How do you actually reset your life after maybe you didn't reach a goal that you really wanted to get to, or maybe you didn't get that job that you really wanted to get, or maybe you have just broken up with your significant other that you've been with for years, and you feel like you're just starting life all over again. Or maybe it's that you just feel stuck, and you feel like you have been there for years, stuck in this cycle, this never-ending cycle, and you're like, "When is it going to happen for me? When is it going to get better for me?" This is the reset that you need to become that person, to become that woman that you imagine yourself to be. The woman that you know you are, but you just feel lost in trying to figure out, "Well, where do I go from here? How do I actually get there? What are the steps to becoming her?" By the end of this episode, I am hoping that you will see very clearly and very honestly the things that you need to do and the things that you need to understand about yourself so that you can truly start wherever you are right now and move the needle forward. First and foremost, we are grieving the plan. Whatever that plan is, whatever the steps to get there, whatever the timeline was, we're grieving it. Grief comes in many forms, and it doesn't just come with the loss of someone. It doesn't just come with death. It comes with letting things go. It comes with losing people in our lives, not just by death. It comes from letting go of pieces of ourselves, moving from different homes or going to a different state, or leaving something behind that no longer serves us and our greater purpose or who we are hoping to become, or who, who we know we are today. Maybe there's something that doesn't bring you as much joy anymore, and we can still want more for ourselves. We can still want different for ourselves, while also still being sad or disappointed or grieving this thing that we are leaving behind or that we have lost. And the thing is, is that if we skip that feeling of grief, if we just push it off to the side and ignore it, we're going to be stuck because we're not allowing ourselves to feel everything that we need to feel I know for me a, a big struggle is when it comes to grief beyond just the loss of people in my life, my dad, my, my dog, my best friend. Like, grief shows up for me in the loss of versions of myself. Comparing my current self, my present self, to a past version of myself. I have come into a place where I feel like I'm at a wall with a lot of bits and pieces and parts of my health. Everything's fine. I'm okay. I'm living, I'm breathing, and I'm so grateful for that, but my body now at 32 isn't the same it was even just four or five years ago. It's different now. So I'm grieving the process that I had gone through, maybe the ease of it, to get my body into a more energetic, healthy state versus where I'm at now, where the, the road forward is a little bit tougher, if not a lot a bit tougher. And I'm grieving that version of myself who found ease in that place of my life. And if I don't recognize that, I'm just gonna continue to fight myself as I try to move forward in this body, in this present time right now. You can't reset something where you are not able to admit you're hurt. You can't feel courageous and brave enough to go out there and make new friends if you can't admit the grief and the hurt and the disappointment you might be feeling from the loss of a friendship You can't continue to move forward in enjoying this new home that you've moved to if you aren't recognizing the things that you left behind in your old home to move to this one. And it's not about rushing through grief or rushing through this moment of, of time or rushing through this thing that you're letting go of. It's about recognizing it and honoring this part of you. Honoring this part of you, this physical thing that you had, this person that you had, honoring it, recognizing the hurt that it may have caused or the joy that you felt by having this thing. I always say that grief is love, it's just a form of love. It's the more grief that you feel, the harder the grief is, it's the more that you have loved this person or this thing. And sometimes looking at grief in that way allows you to really understand why you feel this emptiness or this really deep grief for certain things or certain people. It's because you loved that so much. You loved certain moments about this person that you were or this person that was in your life, or these memories that you had. Or maybe it's even that you loved this story and this image and this life that you thought you were creating for yourself that you loved. And when all the skeletons came out of the closet, you had to let it all go,'cause it wasn't built on the foundation of truth. So I want you to ask yourself, what can you do right now to actually let yourself mourn in whatever way it might be? As I said, it could be for a thing, it could be for a person, it could be for the death of a person, it could be for a person that maybe you're not in a relationship with anymore, maybe that isn't in your, in your life anymore. Or maybe you're mourning a version of you that you used to be. How can you actually mourn that? How can you actually give yourself the space to mourn that? To let the grief come, to let the understanding flow to you. How can you actually feel that and give yourself the space to do that? Not everything is a sign, but everything does happen for a reason. And I do really believe that. Because although not everything is a sign, everything can be a teacher. This detour that you're experiencing right now, this place that you are in right now, this feeling of grief, this feeling of failure, this feeling of lost, is asking you where you need to pivot in your life right now. This is asking you, where is this redirecting you? Have you lost this person in your life because it's making room for something else? Did you not get that job because there's something better? Did you not reach that goal of yours because maybe there was a better way to get there? Or maybe it's because there was a better goal to set for yourself. Zooming out and actually finding the redirect of where life is redirecting you to actually can be extremely challenging, and sometimes take a lot of time. And usually it does take sitting in that grief and trying to come to an understanding. The one thing that allows us to actually move forward, especially after a difficult moment or time in our lives, is hope. And the thing that redirecting or seeing a sign or reminding yourself that everything's a teacher or looking at something for what it could have made room for in your life can give us that sense of hope. Instead of asking yourself, putting yourself down and saying, "Why is this happening to me? Why am I not good enough? Why am I not worthy enough? Why is this not working out for me?" Instead of asking that, I want you to ask,"Where is this redirecting me? Where is this asking me to pivot? Where is this asking me to show up? Where is this asking me to have more courage and strength?" It's really difficult to look at some of the situations that life has presented us with and look at it in a way, almost in like in a positive way Especially when the situations are extremely negative or extremely h- extremely hurtful or extremely disappointing. I know a really, really big one for me was back in December of 2019. I had lost my dog, Athena, and it was an extremely traumatic moment for me to watch her get hit by a car, and it was right smack in the middle of a depression that I had been going through and was just starting to come out of. So it felt like in that moment… I'm like, the feelings are kind of, like, coming back from it. Like, in that moment, it just felt like I was finally getting back up and I just got kicked back down, and I got kicked back down hard. And I had worked so hard to get myself out of this really, really horrible place after a really horrible breakup to get back on my feet and start living life and start figuring out what life looked like for me now. I had just, just moved back to New Jersey after being in Connecticut in, um, a horrible relationship, found myself in another horrible relationship, and after Athena had passed away, um, I ended up back with that same person. I found myself, after she passed away, back in the same relationship I was grieving prior, and then came to find out that he cheated on me right before COVID. And I found myself back in a new-ish place with- without my best friend, without a significant other, and stuck in the middle of a pandemic completely and utterly alone And it wasn't that I wasn't used to being alone sometimes, I think this was me being really alone. As horrible as these things were, as horrible as the pandemic was, as horrible as my ex-wife was, as horrible as losing Athena was, it was one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It was kind of in a weird way, like a blessing in disguise. I'm sure you've heard of that feel- that, that say- saying before, like a blessing in disguise, where something so hurtful happens to you, and you come out of it with your life changed, with your life completely different, with you going in a direction of life in a much more joyful, grateful, value type of way I learned how to be by myself and be happy by myself. That next year, year or two, I… It- And I'm not gonna lie to you, it was really tough. There were so many moments where just I felt so alone, grieving multiple things at the same time. I was, I, I was such, and I, I still am, like, I'm such an outgoing person. I love to talk to people. I love to communicate. Hey. Why do you think I have a podcast? And here I am by myself with no one to talk to but myself. It was so weird. I would, I mean, I would wake up and I would literally talk to myself because I had no one to talk to. At least it's not as weird when you're talking to your dog, you know? And I would say this is exactly what I'm referring to when I want you to zoom out and actually look at this redirect. Where is this redirecting you? Maybe you don't see it now, and that is totally okay. It's not about figuring out what the redirect specifically is right now. It's about finding out where hope lies for you. This is one thing that I know if I've struggled with this, you may have as well. Do not feel guilty for feeling two things at once. I know that I could feel so guilty about the fact that I lost my dog, I left a horrible, a horrible relationship, and there are so many people that really struggled through the pandemic, and I'm over here living my best life Point blank period. I'm living my best life, but I'm still hurt by these things. I'm still affected by these things. But it gave me the opportunity to look at them differently. It gave me the opportunity to see, like, the light at the end of the tunnel, essentially. When things are not going according to your plan, just know that they're still working out for you. Okay, so you have grieved and you have found hope, or at the very least, a lesson What is the actual reset? And as I said, this doesn't mean that you know your whole plan forward. This is just the next couple of steps to actually get you there. The first thing that you're gonna do is you're gonna reconnect with your body. Get some vitamin D, go outside, walk, water, sun. Walk, water, sun, brush your teeth. I cannot tell you how amazing a huge gulp of water is, or just starting to hydrate my body with a lot of water. It just makes a world of a difference. It's like, it's like when you water your plants, or a plant, and you water it, it looks really, really… It looks dead, okay? You are ready to wake up the next morning and for that plant to be gone. And you're like, "Oh, maybe it just needs a little water, a little sun." So you give it a little water, you give it a little sun, and you wake up the next day and that thing is thriving. That's you. I want that to be you. Move your body, get the blood flowing, drink some water, and go out in the sunshine. Even- and if it's not sunny outside, jump around your house. Dance. It, it is known, don't come for me. This, it is literally science that, that, that makes you feel better. Jump up and down, dance, and pretend you're happy until you're actually happy. And I promise you, it works every single time. And number two, I want you to clear the noise. Everything that's on your mind, whether you need a brain dump or a journal session, write it down. Write it down. I think that writing something down physically with, like, pen and paper is going to do wonders for you, but if you don't have the access to that or you need to just type it into a computer or type it into your phone, do that. Neither is about keeping something organized. It is just about getting whatever is going on up here in your head down on paper so that you can feel as though you're letting something go. Because, well, you are. Because now you don't need to hold it in the space up there. Now it's down on paper. Now it's somewhere where you can remember it. You're not holding it up there in all the file cabinets of your brain. Now it's on a piece of paper, nice and safe. And if there is something, if we take this one little step forward, if there's really something that you really need to let go of energetically, you can write it down on a piece of paper, crumple it up, throw it in the garbage. Or you can actually do the physical movement of pushing it away, thinking about it and just pushing it away from you. That is something that does energetically help as well. After you have got back into your body and have brought yourself a little bit of peace and have cleared out the noise, we Are going to go onto the next step, which is just choosing one little tiny thing to act on. Do one tiny little thing, or just choose what your next step is going to be. I don't want you to overwhelm yourself with creating a whole plan. I don't want you to do what I do sometimes and create, like, this most, the most intense reset plan ever to completely change your whole entire life. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't. In this moment where we're just feeling down and out, I just want you to choose one thing that you're gonna do, and that's it. Just choose what your next step is. You don't need to choose or plan the next five or 10 or even two. Just plan what you are going to do next, especially if you're feeling overwhelmed. And finally, the fourth thing that you're gonna do in this reset is you are going to reconnect to your why. If this plan that you had originally has failed or you are feeling stuck and lost, ask yourself why. What is your why? What is the thing that gives you hope? What is the thing that you are imagining for yourself? This better version of you or this higher version of you, what does she look like? What does she want? Why do you want this out of life? I'll give you an example from myself. I have been in this very tough cycle of my health, as I mentioned earlier in the episode, and recently I've been kind of noticing a couple of things that aren't really amazing, aren't really great, and I will get really caught up in the plans that I did have, but then my body isn't catching up. So I'm getting back to weight training, which I absolutely love, and it's been feeling so good to get back to it, but my body isn't catching up. So I keep feeling like I'm in this place of feeling stuck or failing because I'm waking up every single morning feeling like I'm not getting enough sleep. My body is extremely sore, and I'm not physically able to do the workouts the way that I want to. My why is to feel better in my body. So if I'm not feeling better in my body right now, what is the number one thing that I can do? What is one step that I can do to Get closer to that. To not be so stuck on the fact that I don't feel great right now or that my body isn't healing the way that I've expected it to, and look at it from a different angle that can still get me to that why, that can still get me to my goal of feeling better in my body. And maybe I could get a little bit more sleep this week. Maybe instead of going five times, I can go three, and I can work my way from there. So my next step is actually taking a step back from this plan that I've created for myself to reach this goal. Because what's happening right now, the reason why this current plan that I have has failed or isn't going my way, is because I don't feel good. It's because my why isn't being met. Or maybe for you, your why is to have a beautiful work-life balance with a job that provides you with financial security. And this job, this dream job that you've always wanted, maybe the interview didn't go well and you didn't get the job What can you do now to still get to your why? Because your why isn't having this specific job. Your why is having financial security and a work/life balance. Now that you see the redirect, what is your next step that aligns with your why? Sometimes you just need a little help getting through the grief process or the sad process before you get to the redirect, the hope, and the understanding that you can still have a life worth living. You can still have all of the things that you need and want and deserve, because we all deserve the world, truly. Let me leave you with this. Sometimes the best things in our lives come from broken plans, come from being lost, come from life feeling like it has fallen apart. Rather than fighting against where the universe is leading you, let it flow, because you never know if this plot twist is leading you to something even better than you could have ever imagined. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. Next week, we are gonna be talking about a fresh new start to school. We are coming up on September and school season, where people are going back to college, or maybe the people around you are going back to school, or maybe you're going back to school, or maybe your kids are going back to school. We're gonna be talking about that fresh start in next week's episode. Same time, same place, 12:00 Eastern. I love you to the moon and back, and I cannot wait to see where this one little step takes you this week. Bye.