where women celebrate their ageless authenticity
When was the last time you paused, then pivoted into something new?
Seeing things for the first time, as they really are, is a life skill we’re born with that sort of sneaks out the back door as we age, before we realize it’s even missing.
After all, how often do we face new adventures and challenges without the excess baggage of our life experiences weighing down our approach. It’s hard to see beyond our fears of failure, and unmet expectations, especially with a less than prime time body. Then there’s our excuses to keep us safe — it’s just too much work, I don’t have the time, what will people say, I never get what I want. And my personal favorite, I’m not worthy.
We get stuck. Even though we’re free to turn things around.
Enter the pivot. Websters refers to the noun as: a central point, pin, on which a mechanism revolves. Verb: To turn around, right where you are. To completely change the way in which one does something.
Way back when, in my training days as a figure skater, pivoting was a welcomed relief. A choreographed breather, sandwiched in between the hard stuff of my routine. All I had to do was firmly plant one toe pick into the ice (standing as my true self) and effortlessly ride the edge of the other blade while it took me in an ever-widening circle. Getting lost in the momentum felt like flying. The joy in those few seconds brought me home to myself with the renewed belief of what I was capable of. It was revolutionary. Luckily my coach knew how to fuel up my mind so I could then send my whole self into completing the remaining elements of the program, now no longer impossibly difficult, just simply what was needed to get me where I ultimately wanted to go.
You don’t have to be an athlete or have a choreographed routine to perform a pivot. It’s more about setting yourself in motion toward a new direction. Seeing a new way through, or a workaround a stumbling block to keep growing. And when we pause for a more expansive view, the challenge is in scale with all the possibilities available to choose from, like finding the missing puzzle piece.
Sometimes a huge heap lands at your feet and you have no choice but to pivot and reinvent yourself. Or perhaps it’s a slow boil that finally reaches the brim. Or you’ve tried every way already (memories of wedging the new couch through the door frame), and nothing fits until you break it down into smaller pieces. Really, the impetus comes from believing you’re just what’s needed. Then taking the first steps. Seeing something new, or again, for the first time, in a different light.
If our lives read like a map, how many twists and turns, hills and valleys, repeats and dead ends, loves, joys, triumphs and defeats have brought us to today. Look how far we’ve come without knowing how it’s going to be until we arrive.
Think of all the turning points you’ve already experienced. I can recall those moments that forever changed my path. Can you? Or, are you still holding onto them when you shouldn’t be? You can’t pivot when you’ve pinned yourself into a corner. And, more importantly, can you honor all those moments as crucial to who you are. If we don’t choose to turn around our view, we miss out on what’s already there, waiting.
Count me among those who choose to see obstacles as teachers. Gifts that allow us to know ourselves more deeply. As a student of life, experiencing new things makes us feel most alive.
When you think of the pivoting with purpose, you must be tied to something solid, like yourself. You build the momentum from there.
Steve Jobs said, “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that do.”
So why not start with each of us. Let’s get audacious within our own little world and seek out the new. Turn around and see. Be willing to notice. The Universe is always revolving and spinning, so we are always at a turning point. There’s no escaping change, why not embrace the new and make it revolutionary.
TAKEAWAY:
In the book “Look Again” The Power of Noticing What Was Always There,” Neuroscience Professor Tali Sharot and Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein reveal a groundbreaking study of how disrupting our well-worn routines — both good and bad – can rejuvenate our days and reset our brains to allow us to live happier and more fulfilling lives. Based on decades of psychological and biological research, they found that by temporarily changing your environment, changing the rules, changing the people you interact with, or even just stepping back and imagining change, you regain sensitivity, allowing you to identify more clearly the bad and more deeply appreciate the good.
Sounds like a pivot to me. Happy 360s!!!
