The Pivot Year

by Brianna Wiest

There is great power in not knowing. Not knowing what is next, not knowing what to decide, not knowing how you will make it to where you know you want and need to be. Every given moment contains within it doorways of opportunity, and when you choose to walk through one, you make realities available to you that were once invisible. When you do not know what is next, you enter the realm of infinite potential. Instead of trying to plan your life so safely and so succinctly, you can begin to plan for the moment, the joy, the journey. Instead of living on autopilot, you can learn how to continuously meet the ever-changing, ever-possible now. When you finally admit that you do not know what is next, you enter the golden vortex—the space between everything you know you’re meant for and anything you had previously imagined to be.

There is great power in not knowing. Not knowing what is next, not knowing what to decide, not knowing how you will make it to where you know you want and need to be. Every given moment contains within it doorways of opportunity, and when you choose to walk through one, you make realities available to you that were once invisible. When you do not know what is next, you enter the realm of infinite potential. Instead of trying to plan your life so safely and so succinctly, you can begin to plan for the moment, the joy, the journey. Instead of living on autopilot, you can learn how to continuously meet the ever-changing, ever-possible now. When you finally admit that you do not know what is next, you enter the golden vortex—the space between everything you know you’re meant for and anything you had previously imagined to be.

the light of day is always there, if you slow down enough to notice.

the light of day is always there, if you slow down enough to notice.

Self-protection is learning how to take a pause between what you feel and how you react. When there is no awareness between what you perceive and the way that you respond, anything can control you. Practice the pause. Widen the space between what you sense and what you do about it. Decide what’s worth your energy, because what you engage with is what you empower.

Self-protection is learning how to take a pause between what you feel and how you react. When there is no awareness between what you perceive and the way that you respond, anything can control you. Practice the pause. Widen the space between what you sense and what you do about it. Decide what’s worth your energy, because what you engage with is what you empower.

There are very few things that excite you in a way that makes you nearly uncomfortable with your wanting of them. Desire is so integral to who you are,

There are very few things that excite you in a way that makes you nearly uncomfortable with your wanting of them. Desire is so integral to who you are,

You’re not failing because you’re not motivated. You’re not supposed to get far on a path that was never yours to walk.

You’re not failing because you’re not motivated. You’re not supposed to get far on a path that was never yours to walk.

life can only grow outward in proportion to how stable it is inward—that

life can only grow outward in proportion to how stable it is inward—that

something also moved through you and cleared out what you didn’t even realize was standing in the way.

something also moved through you and cleared out what you didn’t even realize was standing in the way.

you are one particle in this massive daydream, and without you the fabric of the world would not hold the way it does.

you are one particle in this massive daydream, and without you the fabric of the world would not hold the way it does.

Without you being here, nothing—not one single thing—would be precisely the same.

You may fear the quiet times in your life, when your soul goes through a winter. However, it’s often those same times when the most profound and human work of all is being completed. Be still. Do nothing. It is both the quiet and the noise that writes the symphony, the blank canvas and the paint that makes the picture, the rest and the movement that gives you the wisdom, insight and clarity to press forward more boldly than ever before.

You may fear the quiet times in your life, when your soul goes through a winter. However, it’s often those same times when the most profound and human work of all is being completed. Be still. Do nothing. It is both the quiet and the noise that writes the symphony, the blank canvas and the paint that makes the picture, the rest and the movement that gives you the wisdom, insight and clarity to press forward more boldly than ever before.

You start to see that you cannot see everything, and so begins the true journey of your life, which is the dance between what is yours to handle and what is yours to release.

The things you want to create also want to be created through you. What you are longing to bring into the world is also what the world is longing for you to bring it.

let yourself witness with each passing day that it is once again safe to exhale, to step outside your comfort zone,

to trust in the unknown.

mindfulness. You will begin to see that when your energy is leaking out into a thousand different directions, you cannot fully invest your own potential.

If you do not know what to do next, it’s time to learn to be in the answered prayer that is this very day.

When we find the courage to look long enough into the eyes of our demons, they dissolve into crying children, just asking us to set them free.

love is not something you find one day, it’s something you learn to see surrounding you already, it is something you heal yourself into being able to fully receive.

Until you confront the shadow of your own self-disapproval, you will always be gazing out at the world in fear of who might not love you completely, who might draw your awareness to the part of you that already believes you are unworthy of being appreciated, of being fully and truly known. You must find a way to make peace with yourself, even if you cannot madly love every last aspect of who you are. You must come to a place of believing you deserve respect, even if you are still a work in progress. You must learn to see yourself with kinder eyes.

You become who you really are when even the most minor decisions throughout your day reflect your authenticity, when your instinct leads you before your mind interrupts.

Don’t get so used to chaos that peace feels like something’s

When you feel a connection waning, that is when you must remind yourself not to steer another human being’s destiny.

To love someone is to allow them to be sovereign.

true intimacy, not formed upon the basis of expectation or need,

but the free will of two souls who see no more preferable way to spend their energy than on one another.

love that is intuitive and clear, that does not make you question or doubt how worthy you are of being prioritized, of being invested in. ...

not one of us—gets to the end of this life with our hearts entirely unscarred,

If another person’s love does not make you feel safe enough to open up, if it does not make you see yourself more kindly, if it does not make you want to live more in the ways you’d always intended—it is not for you. Not because you are not deserving, but because you are actually completely deserving of someone who makes you feel happiness not only when you are with them, but also when you are not.

Consider, instead, how infrequently the worst case scenario has ever come to pass,

and then consider how ruminating on it isn’t protecting you from it, but allowing your mind to piece and filter that particular reality more clearly into form.

No, you will not be able to avoid hurting, but you will get better at it with time. You will learn to hear someone’s disapproval and not immediately internalize it but simply witness it as their experience: one that does not have to touch you, nor sway or force you to react. You will feel your nervous system activate and your heart pound, and you will not self-destruct as though that may act as a Band-Aid, as though it could soothe you in some masochistic way. You will sense when you are tired and burnt out, and you will decide to love yourself enough to resist the urge to keep engaging and simply rest. You will learn about yourself enough to know when you need quiet, when you need connection, and when you need nurturing in the most basic ways—and you will learn how to give that to yourself. You will be rejected, and it will not end you; it will not initiate your own internal collapse. No, you will not be able to avoid hurting altogether, but you will become better able to weather it in time.

Instead of trying to figure out whether or not something is definitely right for you, just notice what creates resonance or dissonance. Ask yourself if it makes your body gently contract or expand. Ask yourself if it gives at least as much energy as it takes. Ask yourself if it intrigues you, fascinates you, compels you. Ask what is there to be found. Ask where walking this path might lead. Pay attention to your body’s most subtle responses: the way you lightly open or close yourself to the experience, and tally up the smallest coincidences. Let yourself be guided in the quietest ways.

Please, whatever you do, never forget that what you observe in others is also dormant in you. You are not coming into knowledge of a space in which you lack but a space in which you are most primed to expand and grow. The tension is not the result of another person occupying what could be yours to stand in, but the revelation of how much you are suppressing that they allow to flow out of themselves—how much they are willing to embrace. Your ego will want to make people like this your enemies. Your soul knows that they are your teachers in disguise.

is easy to know where there is a lack of love, but harder to reach down within ourselves and let it come from us first.

the sculpting of your soul would emerge through the consistency by which you showed up and kept trying, kept going, kept forging yourself through the fire of your own fear?

You either see things through a critical lens, or a creative one. You either spend your life constantly evaluating how each thing around you is not enough, or you shift your perspective to wonder how you can turn all that you have into anything you ever wanted. You either seek out and focus on the ways in which you are imperfect, or you see within those imperfections cracks through which your greatest growth, your greatest purpose, and your greatest vision will emerge.

When you love your life exactly the way it is, it transforms into everything you’ve always wanted it to be.