The Pivot Year

by Brianna Wiest

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.