The Life We’ve Lived - and the Life We Haven’t Lived Yet

There may come a point in your life when you begin to realize that you have lived enough life to have a story.

Not a neat story. Not necessarily the story you would have written for yourself.

But a life.

There have been choices you made intentionally and choices you fell into. There have been things you pursued because you wanted them and things you pursued because they seemed like what you were supposed to want.

There have been relationships that changed you, losses that broke your heart, places that are etched indelibly in your soul.

There are the women you once were who you barely recognize now.

And there are probably still women inside you that you haven't met yet.

For much of my life I was oriented toward the future.

What's next?

What do I need to accomplish?

What do I need to figure out?

What comes after this?

When we're young, this orientation makes sense. There is so much life ahead of us that we can imagine almost anything.

We are becoming someone. Building a career. Falling in love. Creating a family. Finding our place in the world.

But eventually, something shifts.

You begin to have a sense not only of how much life might be ahead of you, but of how much has already happened.

And this can bring with it a particular kind of reckoning.

Not necessarily regret.

Sometimes gratitude.

Sometimes grief.

Sometimes astonishment.

Sometimes all of it at once.

I discovered a deep wisdom in allowing myself to look backward - not to become trapped in the past, but to understand the life that has brought me here. 

Asking myself…

What did I learn?

What did I survive?

What and who did I love?

Where did I abandon myself?

Where did I surprise myself?

What patterns have repeated?

What choices have quietly shaped the person I’ve become?

What parts of myself did I have to leave behind in order to belong, succeed, be loved, or be needed?

And what parts are asking to come back?

What Is the Life Review?

The Life review is not the same thing as reminiscing.

It is not creating a highlight reel or making peace with every choice we've ever made.

It is a deeper listening.

We begin to see our life not simply as a series of events, but as a tapestry woven from threads that have been running through us all along.

We begin to notice the places where something has been trying to tell us who we are.

Sometimes the meaning of an experience isn't available to us when we're living through it. We understand it years later.

A relationship we thought was a failure becomes the place where we learned to tell the truth.

A career we thought was a mistake teaches us something essential about what matters to us.

A loss opens a door we couldn't have imagined walking through.

Reflection helps us make meaning of what we’ve lived.

We begin to see a through-line.

We begin to feel our wholeness.

And from that place, we aren't starting over. We are moving forward with more of ourselves.

Looking Back to Understand What Comes Next

And then there is the other side of life review.

The life we haven't lived yet.

Because looking backward can make us more available to the future.

When we understand what has shaped us, we become freer to choose what comes next.

We can ask different questions.

Not simply, What should I do now?

But:

What matters to me now?

What am I ready to stop carrying?

What wants to grow?

What kind of woman do I want to be in the years ahead?

There is something powerful about realizing that we don't have to keep living from the momentum of the life we've already created.

We can honor who we've been without remaining loyal to every version of ourselves.

We can carry forward what is precious.

We can release what is no longer ours.

And we can become curious about what hasn't been written yet.

The life we haven't lived yet is not necessarily a completely different life.

Sometimes it is simply a deeper inhabiting of the one we're already living.

More truth.

More aliveness.

More choice.

More of ourselves.

The Life We Haven’t Lived Yet

Perhaps this is one of the gifts of getting older: the invitation to stop rushing quite so quickly toward the next thing and become willing to sit with the life we've actually lived.

To listen for what it has been trying to teach us.

And then, from that deeper knowing, to ask:

What now?

If something in this reflection stirs a longing to slow down and spend more time with the life you've lived, and the life that is still unfolding,I invite you to join the waitlist for the Life Review.

We will be gathering this spring with a small group of women who are ready to pause, reflect, make meaning of where they've been, and listen for what is asking to emerge next.

I would love to have you with us.