When Life Changes Without Your Permission
LIBERTY FORREST | NUMEROLOGIST | HEART-CENTERED GUIDANCE
There are changes we choose.
We decide something isn’t working, or we want something different, or we’re ready to move on from a version of life that no longer fits, and even if it’s difficult, there’s at least a sense that we’re the ones steering things.
And then there are the other kinds of changes.
The ones that arrive without asking.
They don’t wait until you feel ready. They don’t check whether the timing is convenient or whether you have the energy to deal with them. They might appear gently, or they might slam into your life like a bag of bricks in the head. But in either case, you’re left standing there wondering what the hell happened.
Sometimes it’s obvious and immediate. Something ends, something shifts, something you thought you could rely on is no longer there.
Other times it unfolds more gradually, but with the same underlying feeling — that something has moved, and you didn’t move it.
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I think those are the moments that can leave you feeling most off balance, not necessarily because of what has changed, but because you didn’t choose it. The changes we didn’t pick are sometimes the hardest ones to accept.
There’s something about having your hand on the wheel, even if the road is rough, that makes things feel more manageable. You can prepare yourself, justify the decision, explain it to yourself in a way that makes sense.
When the change isn’t yours, you don’t get that. You’re left responding to something that’s already in motion. It can take a little while to even catch up with it.
You find yourself going through the motions of your day, doing what needs to be done, while part of your mind is still trying to understand what just happened. There’s a lag between the external reality and your internal sense of it, and until those two line up again, everything can feel slightly off. Maybe even off in a big way. But at the very least, unfamiliar.
When that happens, it’s very easy to start looking for a way back.
Not always in a literal sense, but in the way the mind tries to restore what felt known and predictable. You might find yourself thinking about how things were before, or how they should have continued, or what you would do differently if you could go back and change something.
It’s a natural response. Familiarity feels safer than uncertainty, even when what was familiar wasn’t entirely right. But there comes a point where the focus has to shift.
Not all at once, and not in a forced or artificial way, but gradually, as you begin to recognise that whatever has changed is not going to undo itself simply because you wish it would.
That can be a difficult thing to accept, especially if the change involves loss of some kind, or the ending of something that mattered to you. There’s a part of you that wants to keep looking over your shoulder, to keep measuring the present against what used to be there. I’ve sure had more than my share of that. Maybe you have, too.
And yet, your life is still moving forward.
Even when it doesn’t feel like it. Even when everything feels paused or uncertain or slightly out of place, time is still doing what it does. Days continue. Things shift in small, almost unnoticeable ways. You begin, slowly, to find your footing again. Not in the same place or the same way, but in a new one.
What helps, at least in my experience, is not trying to rush that process.
There’s a temptation to get back to feeling “normal” as quickly as possible, to make sense of everything, to figure out what this new version of life is supposed to look like. But sometimes the most useful thing you can do is simply allow yourself to be where you are, without needing to have all the answers immediately.
That doesn’t mean staying stuck. It means recognising that adjusting to change — especially change you didn’t choose — has its own pace.
You don’t have to solve everything at once. You don’t have to know exactly what comes next before you take the next step. You don’t have to force understanding or acceptance where there hasn’t been enough time for that yet.
What you can do is stay with yourself in it. Pay attention to what is actually here now, rather than only what used to be.
Notice what still matters, what still feels right, what you might want to carry forward with you even though the circumstances have changed. Because even when the change wasn’t your decision, what you do with it still is.
That’s where your footing begins to return. Not because everything is resolved, but because you’re no longer only reacting to what happened. You’re beginning, quietly and gradually, to participate in what comes next.
And that’s a very different place to stand.
READ: How Small Changes Lead to Powerful Transformation (Opens in a new window)
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Liberty Forrest is a numerologist, author, and a professional psychic and medium. For five years, she made frequent guest appearances on BBC Radio doing “psychic phone-ins”. Liberty is also a former HuffPost contributor and has written extensively on personal growth, relationships, and self-understanding.